Val and I have been reading a lot about RVs, and one of the recommendations people have for newbies (and even anyone experienced who gets a new RV) is to take the RV to a site with hookups close to home and spend a night in it. That way, you get to learn how to hook everything up and exercise all the equipment, so you’ll find out what stuff you might need before you get out in the boonies. Seemed like a good idea, so we stayed at Travel Villa, a place in Redwood City, right off of 101.
Hooking up to shore power (RV-speak sounds a lot like boat-speak) was simple, as was incoming fresh water. We’d previously had a hard time getting the coach AC working, but had no problems this time. Good news, since the AC made me nervous. I think the coach batteries were too dead to start it, but after charging with the shore power, they had no trouble starting it up.
Staying in the RV is fun. We ran to Target and bought more stuff for it, including a frozen pizza to make in it for dinner. That was a good test, since it verified that the freezer and stove not only work, but are big enough for a full-size frozen pizza.
We watched a couple episodes of Entourage, courtesy of Erik’s boxed set (mini-review: first 2 episodes OK, outlook positive), and the RV makes for a nice cozy evening. The TV is small, but that’s not too bad in a relatively small space like the RV. The speakers are weak, which is bad when the AC and/or oven are on. Luckily, I’ve ordered a 15-inch LCD TV from Overstock.com to replace the 13" CRT TV it came with. 15" is the biggest LCD we could find that runs off of 12 VDC power (helpful due to how the power is wired to the TV cabinet), and I think will be plenty big for the RV.
To address the sound problem, I’ll probably replace the really crappy radio in the cab. I found a head unit at Best Buy that plays DVDs (I’ll run the video from the cab to the TV cabinet), which will then run the sound through speakers that are placed throughout the RV. That’ll increase not only the quality of the sound, but the volume.
Todd donated an old DirecTV receiver to the cause, so all I need now is a dish, and I’ll have a full-on multimedia setup in the Minnie. Not a top priority, mind you, but it’ll help kill time when camping in remote locales that don’t have much going on at night (common on bike trips). There are quite a few solutions to getting a dish on the RV, so I’m not worried about that. A lot of people at the RV park simply attached a regular dish to a PVC pipe, and hung it on the ladder when parked.
The last piece of the puzzle was a bike rack. I had a $100 gift certificate to Trail Head, which helped toward that goal. Bikes now have accommodations almost as nice as people do. I still need to work out a lock to secure them (and the rack) to the hitch.
Anyway, mission successful. All the major systems worked, and the minor problems we found were things like cabinet doors that are misaligned. We still have to take the RV back to the dealer for detailing, so we’ll have our list handy for that trip.
Almost ready for a big trip! :D