Our trip to Yellowstone started out 3 hours behind schedule and with me in a miserable state! The night before departure day, I stayed up until midnight packing and folding laundry. Then I tossed and turned until 4AM only to wake up at 8AM to continue packing. The stress of finishing the back end of our trailer, yardsaling AND packing in 12 hours made me come down with a cold all in my tonsils! They were so swollen and red and hurt! Thiat is how are day of traveling started.
With a 1PM departure and 6 hours (according to mapquest) of driving ahead of us, it was going to be a long day! We finally pulled into our campsite (above) around 9:30PM, just in time to make the beds and go to sleep. As we prepared for bed, we learned that we had absolutely NO POWER! My guess: the battery is dead. Hubby's guess: the 2yr old battery is not being charged by the truck. Either way, we had no power for bed time, just the propane. No power means no light and no water pump. That's okay, we packed bottled water and had full propane tanks.
The next morning we toured the Lewis & Clark Caverns. SO COOL!! Well worth a visit. In that pic above that tiny white column in the middle of the pic, that almost looks baseball bat-ish, is over 6 feet tall! There is no depth perception in a cave, when I took the pic, it looked as if it were a few steps away. Weird! We finally got on the road after lunch again, but this time we were only two hours north of West Yellowstone. Well...with a stop in Ennis, Montana to figure out the battery problem, we didn't arrive to our next campsite until 6pm. Whew! Another long day!
With a 1PM departure and 6 hours (according to mapquest) of driving ahead of us, it was going to be a long day! We finally pulled into our campsite (above) around 9:30PM, just in time to make the beds and go to sleep. As we prepared for bed, we learned that we had absolutely NO POWER! My guess: the battery is dead. Hubby's guess: the 2yr old battery is not being charged by the truck. Either way, we had no power for bed time, just the propane. No power means no light and no water pump. That's okay, we packed bottled water and had full propane tanks.The next morning we toured the Lewis & Clark Caverns. SO COOL!! Well worth a visit. In that pic above that tiny white column in the middle of the pic, that almost looks baseball bat-ish, is over 6 feet tall! There is no depth perception in a cave, when I took the pic, it looked as if it were a few steps away. Weird! We finally got on the road after lunch again, but this time we were only two hours north of West Yellowstone. Well...with a stop in Ennis, Montana to figure out the battery problem, we didn't arrive to our next campsite until 6pm. Whew! Another long day!West Yellowstone painted buffalo. They were all over!
So what was wrong with the battery you ask?? I'm getting there...the drive to Ennis was a stress because we kept trudging on not knowing if we would have to back track 3 hours to Bozeman or continue on to West Yellowstone. Thankfully, due to hubby's 3G network fancy phone, we were able to Google auto part stores and rv part stores between us and our destination. This is where Ennis saved the day! We quickly learned of a few places in Ennis we could stop at and get looked at. Did you know that Ennis has a population just over 1,000 people?? This small town saved our derrieres because it also had a NAPA autopart store. With a quick stop at NAPA then a referral to down the street, we learned a heck of a lot of silly stuff out our trailer battery.
There's the culprit of this "woe" story. Did you know that most trucks are installed with a fuse for it's towing cable plug-in that it will blow if you're RV battery is wired BACKWARDS?!?!? Yes, I said that right...our RV battery, whoever installed it last (which for clarity sakes, WAS NOT us) wired it BACKWARDS! Now, if you're anything like me and not electrically savy...that's as far as the explanation will go. Here's a lengthier explanation as quoted from hubby, "the white wire and the black wire were wired so that the white wire was wired to the hot side when it should be the common." And if you need a website that explains A LOT about RV batteries, I found this one that helped me to understand. So...the fuse was blown because of the wiring on the battery. An hour later, that was basically it. With a new fuse, a new battery and less money in our pocket, we were well on our way to West Yellowstone! I'll be adding that dollar amount to the side bar. Keep in mind though, that side bar does not reflect our rear end remodel costs. I'll be adding those as I explain it all.
Happy Travels!
After a nice meal and a bit of relaxing, hubby decides to tackle the refrigerator to get it to run on propane instead of 12V (our trailer battery). THAT TASK took a good hour, plus the pull knob kept yanking off. (Frustration #2 cuz remember, he expanded the water tank)
Once back from that short adventure, hubby sets to 'doctoring' the gaucho to get it back into working order. And no, a gaucho does not have to function (why does it even have that name, it's a couch)...except at night when it turns into a full-size bed, which at that moment would not have supported any weight. Soon into his 'operation' battery operated drill dies! (Frustration #3). Entire task must now be done by hand.
This is the time when I decide to vacate the area with cousin and children to seek another geocache. It was also at this time that I changed toddlers diaper AND realized that I did not pack diapers. We had the three leftover in the diaper bag from the weekend camp trip (Frustration #4...oh really it was hubby's icing on his cake!) 
We quickly resolved that issue and left camp which was the best idea ever because two hours later we returned to camp to a relaxing hubby by the fire with his new magazine!! AND a reinforced gaucho that could now probably hold twice the weight of what it could hold before. I can now say it was quite the learning experience just in that first 24 hours. The next bit will be a lesson on the first step to disassembling your travel trailer.
Our first outing with our little Layton took us on an overnight stay just 20.09 miles from home to a military resort at a nearby lake. Sounds simple right? The week prior to this one night outing (which went smoothly, therefore I will not touch on) was a wee bit rough, so we thought, until we experienced our second journey (which will be a whole other blog post). Five days prior to travel date, we take the tarp off so that we can deep clean it. Did we check the weather forecast?? NOOOO!! Should we have?? YEEESS!! Assuming the week would be sunny and clear, mid-week we get a quick overnight rain storm that dissipates by mid-morning, leaving POOLS of water on top of the camp trailer. Well, I thought, this can't be good. Sure enough, I check the interior and there is water dripping in this whole area...