At the End of the Trip and at the End of One Year

These are random impressions while driving home, both about the five-week trip we're finishing, and about owning the Escape for nearly a year now:

Realizing that our Escape is soon approaching one year of ownership, we have just counted the number of nights we’ve spent in the Escape 19 so far. The answer is very surprising—94! Even if we’re off here and there in the count, we have spent over 25% of the last year in the Escape! That comes as a big surprise! 

The essential simplicity of the Escape continues to be an appealing feature. No slide-outs, for instance. And small enough to tow all over the kingdom and fit in any campsite. 

There are always issues, however, which require the attentions of Great Husband, and which tire him out, especially if it’s late in the day. This must be the nature of the beast (camping, I mean, not the husband).

“I didn't want to do winter camping!” complained Great Husband on our last night when he had to do just one more essential task that involved going out into the snowy cold.

If you can, keep some kind of open container under the kitchen sink. Twice now we've had leaks there. The first one was on the maiden voyage -- the trap was inadequately sealed and needed to be disassembled and the threaded joints sealed with Teflon tape. On this trip, Great Husband discovered more water dripping under the kitchen sink, due to a crummy calk job we think. We’re hoping if we re-calk around the drain (in the sink basin) that will be the cure.

Of all our camping days so far in this first year of Escape ownership, we recall using our air conditioner only 3 days, but we still think we’ll be using it a lot in the future. I cannot imagine summer camping without air conditioning.

On this trip, we only used the propane furnace three times and then only briefly. Once the Escape interior got up to a comfortable temperature with the propane, our little electric space heater had no trouble keeping up all on its own.

Remarkably, on this lengthy trip, we never once had to use any leveling wood. That made life just a little easier and we rejoiced a bit each time we found out that our new site was level.

We had electricity everywhere we camped. We used the microwave every single day. We also brought our Nutri-Bullet and made smoothies almost every day.

One of our best decisions in ordering this camper was adding a two-way water heater (electric and propane). We ran the water heater on electric the entire trip and probably saved a lot of propane. 

It would be better if the switch for switching over the two-way water heater was on the inside of the camper, not the outside.

Make sure you turn off the water pump before travelling because if you forget, the system won’t stay pressurized and the pump will run continuously.

Keep the latch on the trailer hitch well-lubricated and exercise it every time before trying to hook up to the tow vehicle. We found that ours binds and can be difficult to latch. If you fail to exercise the latch as part of your hitching routine, it’s impossible to tell whether the latch won’t close on the hitch ball because your alignment is poor or because the latch is binding.

Once the tongue is settled on the ball, if the latch doesn't close easily right away, pull the tow vehicle ahead a half inch, and then try again to close the latch. That usually solves things.

If there’s any chance it’s going to get below freezing, disconnect the fresh water hose to be on the safe side. Ours froze one night, but without apparent damage.

The original shower curtain is too stiff, too long and too wide, and one of the hanging holes tore through. We’ll be in the market for a replacement and trim it for a custom fit.

We only put the awning out once very briefly on this trip. After a whole year, we’re still waiting for perfect awning weather.

We also had zero campfires on this whole trip! I guess we could say we’re also waiting for perfect campfire weather.

Great Husband got an ice water “shower” one time when he opened the bathroom vent and snow melt fell on his head. Poor guy.

Cold weather has one special positive effect—no insect issues.

Despite the negative of carrying the extra weight, it’s really nice to carry some water in your fresh water tank at all times for the convenience of drinking, washing dishes or hands, and flushing.

We're glad that trust is still alive at privately-run campgrounds in America. Knowing we’d arrive late, we've called ahead and been given instructions on where to set up our trailer and how to pay after the office had closed. 

The Escape tows very nicely, perhaps partially because of the tandem axles. There is minimal impact from cross winds. It tracks very well, and often it isn’t even noticeable that it is trailing along behind us. 

Early in this trip, we decided to move under-utilized items out of the Escape and into the back of the car to see whether we missed having them at hand. One of the first items to go was the insert for the sink, the one intended to create extra work space at the kitchen counter. We didn’t miss it enough to ever retrieve it from the car, and I don’t think we’ll take it on the next trip at all. There are some big advantages to removing the sink insert.

•       the faucet always drips during travel, and now it drips directly into the sink without any wet mess
•       no more will the sink insert be jumping out of the sink while we’re driving 
• the sink insert isn't cluttering up the bed while we wash the dishes

In previous posts called “Baffled”, we described how our refrigerator was not cooling at all when the Escape was in motion, but worked well when stationary. This was the first trip with the new baffle and fan installed under warranty by a Dometic service center. We are reluctant to declare victory until we take a trip in hotter weather, but on this cold-weather trip the refrigerator worked great at all times.

Nebraska is under-appreciated as a home base to see the nation on road trips. We are right in the middle of everything and can find a great trip in any direction. We wonder if we lived closer to the coasts, whether we might consider the rest of the country just too far away.