Before leaving the house, we found an old blanket. To help the cats avoid “moving stress”, we would lay the rug on the floor in the living room and sprinkle catnip on it. They rolled around in the catnip and scented up the rug and made it theirs. In between leaving our house and moving into the trailer, we spent a couple nights in a Red Roof Inn (because they allow pets). The cats were totally unimpressed with the hotel and mostly stayed under the bed, even though we brought the catnip blanket. They came out long enough for pets and snacks. However, once we moved into the trailer, they made themselves right at home. (Check this out.) Of course they had to sniff everything and help unload every box and go in every closet.

As we moved our stuff into the trailer, we got a little worried that we still had too much. So we reinstituted the “maybe box”. (If you didn’t read about the original “maybe box” you can find it here.) This time we knew we would have more time to think about what went in there so the box lived in our minivan. (We also have some items in a storage facility so if there was anything we wanted to keep, we could always put it in there.) Oddly enough, this time, we kept most of the maybe stuff. Actually, we really didn’t put all that much in there this time. Most of the things we decided not to take were not keeper material. They were either too big or too heavy, or we don’t use them often enough to take. They went to my sister in law who is real good at having garage sales.

Minor problems included a CD player in the stereo system that absolutely will not work. It appears to be a manufacturer defect. We have tried several replacements and they all had the same problem. World Wide RV gave us a cassette “loaner” that gives a working radio and tunes for the time being. We discovered a few drawers that don’t slide in and out exactly the way we might like, but they do work. And, someone crimped the drain hose out of the refrigerator so that the first time we defrosted it, no water ran into the evaporator cup. Other than that, the only other minor problem was dirty carpet. We think maybe since the trailer sat for quite a while and probably had a lot of people tromping through it, it got pretty dirty. We steam cleaned it and everything seems fine. (But the water that came out of the cleaner was disgusting!) All in all, these are really only minor items—not anything to get too upset about, although Gary is a bit frustrated about the stereo.

As for a major problem, we knew that when you use the toilet in a camper, you should never leave the drain valve open. You should only open it when it is time to empty the tank. The reason for this is very important: if there is no liquid in the tank when you flush a piece of paper down into the tank, it lands right below the pipe and sits there. Any water runs out, but the paper sits there and dries out. Next time you flush, the paper plops on top of the last one and the liquid runs out. You get the picture. Well, when too many pieces of paper plop on top of each other and dry out, they start backing up the pipe. Unfortunately, they pretty much turn into concrete too, and there is no drain snake that will break through that. You have to cut out a section of the pipe, clear the clog and put a new section in. All in all, it is very messy and should only be attempted by a professional. Well, we knew about leaving the drain closed—we broke Rule #2 which is: Always flush with a lot of water. Being the desert-living, water-conscious people we are, we tried to flush with as little water as possible. End result? Exactly the same as leaving the drain open. It was an expensive lesson, but now we know and we always use enough water. We are now very religious about using the toilet chemicals that eat paper. It may be overkill, but we aren’t going to take any chances. Lotsa water with every flush too!

Since we had a long wait before the truck would arrive, we knew that we would have lots of time to get used to the trailer. We figured that there would be a few things that we would need and a few things that we would have to get rid of before we hit the road. We have made so many trips to Target, Kmart, WalMart, and Camping World in the last couple months that I think we should have bought stock in all 4 just to recoup some money. The first, and most important thing we had to do was find some sort of a small stand for the computer. We had originally planned to put it on the dressing table in the bedroom. On close inspection, we decided that there was no way it would fit. We had a space in the living room where there was this funny little chair. It was in a space that was just big enough for a small computer desk, so we gave the chair to my sister in law and found this desk, which just fits.

The next big decision was the cookware. For many years we have been using a terrific set of enamel coated cast iron. Gary suggested that maybe we should consider something that weighed less. (If you have never cooked with cast iron, believe me, it is very heavy.) Since there was a Corning/Revere factory outlet store nearby, we checked out the Revere pots. After experimenting with one saucepan, we were completely sold, so we went and bought a couple other sizes. We gave the cast iron pots to a friend and looked for the next thing to replace.

That was easy! The mattress was awful. (It felt like that bed looks!)We had so much trouble sleeping, we decided to look into the Select Comfort air mattress. We’re trying to forget the experience, so I won’t bore you with the details. Just leave it at this: the bed is great, but we would never do business with Select Comfort again!

We do a lot of cooking and have a pretty large collection of spices. There is no problem putting them in the cupboard, but we started thinking about them rolling all over the place when we go on the road. So we need some sort of a plastic container that will hold them all, and stay in the trailer out of the way. Of course, when we park for an extended stay, we will put them all in the cupboard, but when we travel for several days at a time, they have to be corralled and easily accessible. Thank goodness for Rubbermaid. They have the right container for everything. Speaking of containers, we have always used Corning Ware dishes and casseroles, but we haven’t always found it necessary to buy plastic lids for the containers. After several more trips to the Corning/Revere outlet store, we finally got a lid for just about every bowl in the place. (We used the excuse that Arizona Mills is so big that it is great exercise walking around the whole place, but we really just needed to get our Corning fix about twice a week.) I really don’t think we need anything else right now, but you never know...... Oh well.

For a list of some other things we needed once we moved into the trailer, check out the Last Minute Details list.

While we were staying at the Green Acres I park in Mesa, we noticed a mother hummingbird building nest in the tree next to where we parked. Most of the time, if we walked too close to her, she would fly away, but sometimes she stayed on the nest and just watched us. We tried to let her know that we didn’t want to bother her, but you know how birds are. Here is a picture of her after she laid her eggs. We never did get to see the baby hummers though because someone trimmed the branch her nest was on and we found the eggs broken on the rocks below the tree. It was very sad.

The truck arrived on June 25th. It’s a very big truck compared to the little Dakota we traded in. In fact even after driving it for a couple weeks, I was a little intimidated by its size. We wanted to put at least 1000 miles on it before we hook up to the trailer and head out, so we went someplace at least 50 miles away each weekend. In three weeks we put over 800 miles on it, so we figure a few more weeks will easily put us over 1000 miles. I finally got over the intimidation after a 250 mile round trip to Cottonwood. I think it just took more time than I was expecting. It is still very big, but not so scary to drive. For those of you who are wondering, with about half the miles we drive highway and half city, we are averaging about 13 miles to the gallon. About what we expected, so no surprise there. My diesel friends keep saying we should have bought the diesel because they get something like 18 miles to the gallon. That’s OK— we are happy.

That is enough of settling in....now, on to the final days before the trip.