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Welcome to the RV Life: Mysteries of Operation

When we first purchased a small travel trailer, (two trailers ago) the whole operation thing was much a mystery.  A few years later, I've sort of worked through the process and feel like I understand most of the essentials, though I'm certainly not as savvy as many RV owners.  But there is quite a learning curve to getting up and going.   First, I like to compare the RV to a house. You have these various systems:  water supply, sewer, electrical, gas (propane), etc.  They work much the same as a house.  They all have connections somewhere on the outside of the rv, and you have to first learn where each one is located on the outside.   Water comes in: (fresh water or city water hose hookup), goes to the water heater and hot water system, and cold water piping system.  In addition, there is a water holding tank that holds water for use when you are not hooked up to a city water system, which has an electric pump that you turn on that causes water to flow, which has to be turned o
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Zane

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"Hey!  Ya'll gettin' on the River?" We were just turning into the ranger station at Persimmon Gap to get a river permit to float the Canyons of the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park.  This was our first of several trips to this spectacular desert country.  We were traveling with our friends Dave Smallwood and Sally Hubbard.  It was Christmas break of 1979, and our son Joel was only three  But having a young child didn't stop us from adventures, and the goal this time was to float through the Santa Elena Canyon and do some hiking in the Chisos Mountains.   The speaker was hanging out of a little Datsun pickup with West Virginia plates, and it was carrying a well used plastic canoe on top.  He was about six foot three, but one of the thinnest people I had ever seen.  He was certainly not handsome, with a rather long, pointed nose, blue eyes, and had a way of nervously pacing in place, as though time was being wasted.   We replied, "Yes, sure are."   We
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Whatever can go wrong goes wrong.

It must have been the spring of 1978. We had just gotten our Mad River Explorer canoe, and I specifically remember that it was acquired about the same time Joel was born. Previous to that time we had gone from a Richland square stern aluminum canoe purchased from an outfitter that unloaded it to us for $50, to a new Lowe Line aluminum 17' to the state of the art wooden gunwale Mad River cadillac of canoes. We were justly proud. And its first river trip was with several friends on the up and roaring Mulberry River in Arkansas. Back then the billion dollar outdoor recreation industry was in its infancy. Whitewater kayak design was unheard of, and most kayakers were required to construct their own boats using fiberglass techniques. Outdoor clothing consisted of either blue jeans or cutoffs, flannel shirts, work boots, or possibly sneakers, and wool shirts if you were savvy in outdoor practicality, since cotton only makes one colder when wet. Neoprene was yet to be invented, as was fl
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