First Time Out...

Our family made our first trip out this weekend after purchasing a used '97 TM2518 over a month ago. We did several weekends of practice camping as everyone from the forum suggested.

First of all the hitch for our TV was backordered and showed up Friday before we left. We seen this coming, so we arranged with some friends to come camp with us Friday night and to come pick us back up on Monday.

The trip itseld got off to a rough start due to the broken torsion bar mount (see "Broken TM2518" posting), but once we figured out that we could still open it up, we decided to continue with the trip.

We decided to camp out at East Fork State Park on the eastern side of Cincinnati. It was a really nice campground with a playground rather close. Most of the campground was electric only, which took me a little getting used to. My grandparents owned a nice 200+ campground, so I didn't think much of what extra had to go on when you didn't have water on site.

This all came to my mind as I was finishing leveling the camper. It was then I realized that we forgot to load up on water before setting up. So we had to shut everything back up so we could tow over to a water hookup. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that the front half was partially crippled. People looked at us a little strange when they watched us heave the front shell up.

So we made it back to the campsite and set things back up. I'm still so very impressed by how quickly everything can go up. The one thing that was a little surprising was how long it took to fill the toilet when you are using the onboard pump. How many gallons does that thing take?

How does everyone else handle this? I didn't like the fact that it took a good amount of water away from what we had available. I was thinking that next time we fill the toilet while we're filling the water tank. Is this the right idea?

The other issue we ran into was with the water heater. I just didn't trust it. It was burning and heating water, but the flame at the pilot hole as creating a lot of soot. That and it seemed to smell alot. Not like the pitch that is in the lp tanks, but something different. So I decided to shut it down and not use it until I could have a dealer look at it. Its not worth burning down the camper or harming my family just for some hot water to do dishes. We'll just warm water the old fashion way.

The weather wasn't too bad. It rained a little bit overnight on Friday and was raining a little bit on Monday morning. I love the sound of rain on a TM. It is so different than any other camper I've been in. It was a little chilly at night and in the morning. I just wished that my wife would have packed something warm for us to wear. She did for the kids, but not us. Next weekend, I pack for myself.

Other than that, the weekend went great. The kids (3 & 5) enjoyed everything except the hiking (too long). We enjoyed everything except for the neighbors on the other side of the brush from us. I don't know how many people were staying on that site, but they all had to communicate by yelling. They spent most of the time yelling for Darren & Jo Jo. Darren was a little 3 year old who spend most of his time crying (very loudly). I think Jo Jo was the next oldest kid who I think spent most of the time picking on Darren. There was a few times they were yelling at the kids asking them if they heard them that I wanted to reply "yes, and so does everyone else in this campground". I feel so sorry for that family. Other than them, everyone else in that area of the campground seemed nice and courtious.

Next weekend we're off to try another campground. This time it will be a county park on the north side of Cincinnat. We're trying to get all the bugs worked out before we do our 9 day trip to Michigan.