Our life with an r-pod begins!
Many thanks to the person who suggested making a video of the walk-through. We watched it from start to finish, and we referred to parts of it when we had a question. We’ve had some adjustments to make to the smaller size, of course, and it’s been a learning experience from sunup until sundown (and later), but solutions to our issues always seem to be simpler than we expected. Many thanks to Sutton RV for connecting us with this great little home on two wheels!
Kim did a great job showing us where everything was and how everything works. I’m glad we made a video, though, because we would have forgotten a lot of it. The hitch is very different from that for the fifth wheel, and the technological advances since our 23-year-old Nash fifth wheel was built are amazing. Hooking up is simpler...but different. The only thing that's harder is seeing where the ball goes into the receptacle. You can see where to connect on the fifth wheel, but not with a regular trailer. We're looking into a backup camera, but until then, it takes two people or a long stick with a flag on it.
Armitage Park in the Lane County Park System was a great place for us to spend the first night. We had a pull-through for ease of driving in and hooking up without disconnecting from the truck. The boys enjoyed the dog park!
Charlie is an old hand at connecting and disconnecting a trailer to hookups, but everything is new and in a slightly different place. One nice thing: We have a black-water flush system, so no more carrying buckets of water into the trailer to dump into the toilet!
Monday night, we were just trying to get everything moved in from the truck, so we could sleep and then hit the road again in the morning. Before we left, I had to pack things together that didn’t belong together, so we would have room to get it all from our house in Bend to Sutton RV in Eugene, where we picked up our trailer. We didn’t know how big the lockers and storage compartments would be, and didn’t have the luxury of bringing lots more boxes of items already organized, with no cover on the bed of the truck. I made some mistakes. (My smallest cookie sheet doesn’t fit into the oven, for example.)
People walked by and stared at us, or stood to admire the beauty of the r-pod by Forest River.
Armitage Park has a dog park. It turned out there was a mud puddle there. Dusty decided to sit in it. When we got back to the trailer with Dusty's derrière coated with mud, I decided to wash him off using the outdoor shower. When we tried to connect it, though, we couldn’t get it to connect. We also had one window we couldn’t open in the trailer. We stopped at Sutton RV again on our way to Florence to take care of these issues. They got us in quickly for service, and our concerns turned out to be easy fixes. A little Roadmaster Lubemaster heavy-duty Silicone RV lube in each window, and the windows open and close with ease. We left with a can of it to deal with future problems.
Like the window, the outdoor shower was just too tight, and Charlie wasn’t pushing it in firmly enough. The repair person at Sutton showed him how to do it and then had him do it. Dusty no longer needed washing off, the mud having dried and left his body. We were on the road again quickly.
We got to Florence about 2:30 PM. We were staying at the Port of Siuslaw Campground and Marina. We’ve stayed there before. Charlie’s brother, Jim, had made a reservation to stay while he looked for a house in Florence. Not too long after he got there, he found a house to buy. He moved out of the campground with a big balance. They give rain checks but no refunds, so he lets us use his balance whenever we camp in Florence. Most of their sites were booked, but we were able to get a site that wasn’t suitable for a larger rig.
Jim came down to the estuary to see the trailer, and we went out to an early supper at the same dog-friendly seafood restaurant we’ve been to before, the International C-Food Market.
Tuesday, while Charlie and Jim took the dogs to the beach, I spent the day pulling almost everything out from cabinets and storage compartments, then organizing it all on table and seats, figuring where it would fit and still be with stuff used together, then putting it all back in a way that would provide easy access for all the more frequently used items. I took photos so I could remember what was in each locker. It’s amazing how much storage space there is in even one of the smallest r-pod camping trailers! Now that we're home, I can go back in and make adjustments to what we have. We love, love, LOVE our new second home!
Here’s a photo of the floor plan, so you have an idea of what we were working with. One of the things we really liked about this floor plan was having all the windows around the dinette and around the bed. It makes it feel much less crowded. Another thing was the fact that having the dinette and the bed at the bow (front) and stern (rear), respectively, means that the sloping shape that makes the trailer aerodynamic doesn’t have much effect on headroom, since you’re either sitting or lying down both places.
The "OHD" on the floorpan has nothing to do with a neurobiological disorder. It indicates where overhead cabinets are. The one over the burners (that black, squarish thing) is for storage. The one to the right of it, mostly over the dinette seat on the port side (for you nautical readers) houses the stereo and the battery/solar controller and display. There is a cabinet under the sink (shown as a white circle). Under the burners is where the convection/microwave oven is located. There is also a built-in vacuum where you can attach a hose to clean the trailer, or you can just sweep everything up to a sort of a slot and turn on the vacuum, which then sucks in anything small in front of it.
Because it's small, there are fewer places to put things. That makes organization important. This is the lower galley locker, under the sink. Cleaning supplies, cutlery, pots and pans, cooking utensils, coffee and tea, and things like salt and pepper. A roll of rubber shelf liner protects the plumbing from rubbing while underway until we can provide foam wraps for the pipes. The tea kettle can go in on top of the cutlery tray when we pack up.
Our cooking utensils and knives are in the dishpan. We have a magnetic knife holder that we can’t use in our kitchen at home. We may install it in the galley to hold our knives when we aren’t moving. I’m not sure if it will hold them if the road gets bumpy, so maybe we’ll just put them away when we stow other things that might fall or get damaged. (I've since narrowed the knives down to three: chef's, bread and paring. They are the ones I use the most. The others are now in the house.)
Here’s everything that was hidden by the dishpan holding the cooking utensils. Small items are in a little plastic tray that tiny tomatoes came in.
The only storage locker that’s difficult to get into is the one under one seat in the dinette. (The other seat contains the furnace.) This less-accessible locker holds the things we don’t expect to need often or things were taking home because we’re done with them, like recycling. For this trip, it was the display cover for the mattress (that silky grey fabric) and our dirty laundry. We had some pantry items in there, along with the hose for our built-in central vacuum, which we only need for heavy cleaning. Since then, we have added the exterior shower hose attachment to this locker. (Of course, that’s tempting fate, because we’re making sure that Dusty will sit in the mud again) and the toaster we had in our old fifth wheel, because it doesn’t weigh much and we have the room. (I was able to toast the freezer waffles in the convection oven, but the toaster would be easier.) I don’t plan to use that tapestry bag again for camping. I ended up putting everything into a plastic box to keep under the bed. We can keep the plastic tote boxes in the house, and then before the next trip, we can pack our clothes in them to be stowed away under the bed in the trailer.
Under the table is the bag of wine or empty wine bottles (we'll probably use an actual box next time, now that we know it will fit), the dog food, toys and other dog-related things, the water bottle we’re currently using and maybe some random shoes. Since there will only be two of us sitting at the table, we have lots of room to put things that might be heavy, which helps distribute the weight for travel, because our tow vehicle's tow package was set up for the much bigger fifth wheel and hitch.
When I wash the dishes, I put the dish soap and water into the small RV dishpan and rinsed in the sink under running water. For boondocking I’ll just put some hot water in the sink for rinsing. The grey mat is my "drain rack,” if I have more than will fit in the lid for the sink. I spread that out on the table. The dishpan fits into the sink nicely and holds everything I need for washing dishes. The lid will fit over it, so I can use it as counter space. (Genius design!)
The cabinet over the burners holds dishes, cups and "glasses," and paper/plastic products, as well as our water filter, which we have in case we run out of spring water. We knew there was no shelf in there, so I brought those rubber-coated adjustable wire shelves.
Here you see how tidy it is now! The dishrag was still wet, so it’s hanging on the faucet. The dish towel was damp. I hung it on the fold-up clothes rod to dry. This photo gives a good view of the sink cover. The other section of counter houses the two-burner stove, but the cover is down. When the stove top is in use, the cover will be up and protects the wall from spatters. The potholder under the tea kettle hangs from the cabinet handles when not in use. I used the dish towel to tie the handles together when we were on the road, but the latches are surprisingly secure.
On the front of this cabinet and just below the countertop is an AC outlet, only useable with shore power. The trash (for now) sits on the dinette seat on that side, which is where we had it when we lived on the boat. Right next to the trash is an outlet with two USB receptacles. We discovered that we could charge two phones at the same time, but not one phone and an iPad. The iPad by itself could charge just fine. There are two other AC outlets in the "bedroom."
Out and accessible when we're docked are the bin of snacks, a supply of fruit and a tray holding the remotes and related items. We put down a tablecloth until we can find out if the table top is prone to wine stains. The table can be moved or folded up. A strap holds it in place for travel.
The TV is on the wall outside the bathroom, right next to the door. It's on an arm and can swing out for watching in bed, but it's unlikely we will do that. The top of the fridge is a good place for a bin holding our "medicine cabinet" items, a plastic tote with the charger connectors and an old lettuce container with medications. All of this has to be stowed on the bed when we’re moving.
There's a huge storage area under the bed. It can be accessed from three places. On each side of the trailer there is a bay door. (In the floor plan picture, they are open.) You can also reach this locker from right below where you climb onto the bed. Sandy discovered you can get out that way if one of the bay doors is open, and when it's closed, it makes a great little den. You might find all kinds of interesting things in there!
Speaking of the bed, the only one sleeping here in this photo is Snowball, Sandy's toy cat. I’ve read complaints about Forest River’s mattresses, but we’re very satisfied with this one. I guess everyone likes different things.
We tried the orientation shown in the photo of the floor plan for a couple of nights. It’s a challenge getting out for the person sleeping next to the rear window, because you have to climb over a sleeping body (not to mention disturbing two dogs) if you have to get up in the middle of the night, or if you’re the first one up in the morning. Because we’re both fairly short, we tried sleeping with our heads at the place indicated by the arrow in this photo.
We decided it wasn’t quite enough room for our feet, so the next night we moved our heads to the side opposite the end with the pillows. (We also moved the pillows.) Bingo! That worked well. I’m the one who sleeps next to the rear window, but I’m able to grab hold of the fridge to get myself over my sleeping Hubs and get down to the floor. The bathroom doesn't provide anything to grab onto.
It’s sort of like sleeping in a tent, except you have an actual mattress, which for us is great. Everyone enjoyed a nice nap with the new position on Friday afternoon, after an exciting but challenging week. I don't see anyone complaining about the mattress. Do you?
The wet bath is so tiny I have to use my reading glasses to focus on the walls, but that’s fine. It gives us more living space.
I love that this model, beginning with last year’s, has the big window (windshield) in the bow (front) of the trailer. The dogs enjoy sitting on the seats in the dinette and looking out the windows. We can open it if we want some additional ventilation, and there’s a bug screen that pulls down.
In case you think our experience was way too positive to be believed, I have to mention some negatives. For design, I have to give the rpod 171 an A+ but for implementation maybe an 85% or a strong B. First of all, the cover to the storage under the dinette, which is also the base for the cushion for that seat, gave me a splinter. I've learned to be careful, but Charlie is going to have to sand the hole you use to pull the lid off the base, as well as the edges, which you also have to handle. Seems like they could have done that.
Then they have this nifty toiletries storage on the wall of the wet bath. Great idea, but it isn't useable. If you put anything thicker than a sheet of paper (in a wet bath, mind you) into one of the two lower pockets, the lid and seat for the toilet won’t stay put, unless you’re parked facing uphill. (We actually like to camp with the trailer level.) It could have been installed higher up, but the bottom pocket would still have been useless. Not sure what we will do with this. (It currently houses our rubber flip-flops.)
I wondered about the shallow shelves. You can’t put much on them, but then (ah-ha!) I discovered that they are intended to be hand holds to get you on and off the toilet! For that purpose, they work great. Otherwise, you would have to grab the little sink––maybe not too good for it.
Another defect is (and we knew this going in) there is no place to put the toilet paper. Where do you put the toilet paper in a wet bath? For now, we keep it on the toilet, unless the trailer is moving or we’re using the shower. Then it gets put out in the galley on the counter. We are looking for something that would fit over the door to hang it on. If that something holds our toiletries, too, that would be a plus. In any event, we will still remove the TP when taking a shower.
Also, there was no mirror. I picked up one when I was getting some groceries at Freddy’s. It’s fancier than we need, but it can hang on the bathroom door. We found some wall space that will work for it, but without the chain and we will have to attach it to the wall. For now, it has to be carefully stowed away when we’re on the move. Maybe we will find a camping or shower mirror online. (This is the outside of the bathroom door.)
I find the front door very difficult to unlock.
The oven works. We have used both microwave and convection functions. I didn't know we were going to spend the extra night and that it would be boondocking, so I didn't bring the pressure cooker, so the burritos I had planned for the last night had to be cooked in the skillet, but that worked. The ends of the burritos were just a little bent. We didn't need the furnace. The AC worked. The fan in the bathroom worked and did a great job. We were able to skip the AC at one point because a couple of open windows and the vent fan did the job of cooling things off. In all, things seem to be functioning as they should. We still have the warranty paperwork to fill out online.
While we were in Florence, we had a great visit with Jim and some walks on the beach with the pups. Sandy was supposed to have no strenuous activity for 10 days after neutering, but it was difficult to keep him from running. At least it was just running. The ten days of restrictions ended Saturday, and he has recovered well from his surgery, so no harm done.
We left our space at Port of Siuslaw Campground and Marina on Friday at lunchtime, just three minutes short of check-out time. Before we left, I left a book for one of our neighbors there, a nice lady I had chatted with our first day there. She had put up a balloon and a banner that read, “Happy Birthday,” so I figured it was her birthday. She wasn’t home when we packed up to leave, so I left the autographed copy of the book (the “Classic Tales” one) on her chair with a note that said, “Happy birthday,” and identified myself as “the r-pod lady with the poodles.” I never expected to find out whether she got it or not, but Saturday morning, when I checked Facebook, I found a lovely comment from her thanking me for the book. What a nice surprise! I hadn’t thought about how I could be found on Facebook, and I’m flattered that she went to the trouble. (Name and profile photo scratched out to protect her privacy.)
We spent Friday night at Three Rivers Casino, where you can park your RV for overnight for free just for registering with the casino. They have hookups if you want to pay and get there in time to get one of those sites, but we just wanted to sleep, eat and sleep again, to prepare for the long-ish ride home.
Most of our neighbors had rather ostentatious trailers, much bigger than ours, but what did they have that we needed and didn't have (besides a mirror and a dry place for toilet paper)? We felt like Mighty Mouse!
The trip home was uneventful other than one motorist who was hoping to catch our draft (I guess), because he followed so closely for a time that we could only see him when we went around curves. Charlie pronounced the new trailer very easy to pull and maneuver. The smoke was very thick in Willamette National Forest we didn’t want to stop to make a sandwich. Presumably it was from the Bedrock fire. We had a little rain. (I hope it helped with the fire.) We arrived home after 4:00 PM and had the trailer unpacked in about a half hour. There was no sign of smoke at home.
I didn't knit a stitch.
We are still dealing with the stealing problem.
What's in The Doll's Storybook: Mariah's first story told of how she arrived and was welcomed by the other girls. The story this week was a rerun, Welcoming the Newcomer.
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