Everyday Adventure

After spending the last five days preparing, it’s time to take our new 21C camping.

It was a cloudy weekend, cool, rainy at times. We arrived after work Friday evening. We stayed in site 418 which was level (we didn’t need any blocks) and had water and electric at the site. The goal for the weekend was simple, enjoy the camper and learn as much as possible about all the new appliances and systems. Setup was quick, once chocked and unhitched we connected to water and 30amp service and we were done. A much less taxing process than with the pop-up camper we’ve traveled in the last five years.

The first major appliance test came that evening when we fired up the small camper oven to bake our lasagna. Based on videos I’d seen online I began the process of lighting the oven’s pilot light with a match only to find out later it has a built in ignitor. Regardless, we got the oven started and it began preheating. We noticed the flames appeared small and the temperature was slow to rise and after waiting a while we began troubleshooting. For whatever reason the oven was stuck on a low setting but cycling through the oven temps one time kicked it into action and it preheated in about 5 minutes. Dinner was great and we enjoyed the rest of our evening inside.

Morning saw us waking up far later than usual- the blackout shades worked very well. It also helped that it was overcast. The day would be cloudy, cool, and at times rainy. A perfect excuse to stay inside and putter around. We took advantage of the Houghton A/C’s built in heat pump which easily kept us warm all weekend. After a late breakfast we spent some time outside hiking and running. We were excited to try out the wet bath for the first time and found it to be plenty of space for a comfortable shower. We did learn that a towel to dry things off after will be a must.

That afternoon we had a lot of fun planning things out, taking measurements and looking for storage solutions. We had snacks and drinks and played around with all the different ways we could sit in the U-shape dinette space. It was said multiple times how happy we were with our new little house on wheels, Pearl.

We woke up the next day after, again, sleeping in with the help of the black out shades. Unlike our previous pop-up camper, breaking camp was literally no sweat. We placed the soap into the sink and put a few things on the bed before hitching up and disconnecting power and water.

The black and grey tanks were emptied on the way out of camp at the dump station. This was a first for us and will take some practice. We used the provided sewer hose which left a lot to be desired and decided when we got home we’d immediately order the 15′ Rhino with clear elbow. To be honest though, our hand was forced. After returning home we noticed the sewer hose holder has a door on the front side as well the back, which was open, and the hose was gone; lost somewhere on the highway between the lake and our house.

We have a lot more to explore and discover about the camper but we met our goal for the weekend. We had fun and we learned a lot about our new traveling home.