In a triumph of hope over expectations, I’m currently preparing my cross country skis for this winter. But I’m also getting ready to start the RV season as early as possible. So far, since we winterized, we’ve been out to the trailer a few times to unpack some things, pack some things, and to switch the license plate holder from the left rear light to the right rear light because the old position was blocked by the ladder. I still need to do something to stop the dinette table from slowly falling down.
In a search for places where we could go early that were open, likely to have no time below freezing or only a few hours of below freezing at night, not overrun with blackflies, and with at least a water tank fill station, sewer dump station and electrical hookup, my eyes turned south to the Ridge and Valley section of Pennsylvania.
Thanks to a referral from somebody on r/GoRV on Reddit, I booked a week in late April in Cowan’s Gap State Park. It looks nice. Too bad they don’t allow drones. (But of course every drone person knows they can ban you from launching or recovering in a park, but they can’t ban you from flying over it, so I might get some footage by launching from outside.)
It’s 5 hours due south of here. According to a gardening site, the average date of last spring frost is late March down there near Pittsburgh, but early May up here, so it’s probably pretty safe from a frost point of view. The trees might even be greened up.
My plan is a day or two before the trip, we’ll bring the trailer home. Hopefully we can park it on the road, but if not we can pull it into the driveway. We’ll re-install the batteries, hook it up to electricity, and get everything charged up. We’ll leave the anti-freeze in the grey and black tanks because why not? There probably isn’t more than a gallon in each. Also we’ll hook it up to the outside tap, fill up the fresh tank and then open the low point drain to flush it out. Maybe repeat that a few times. Then run all the hot and cold taps to get rid of any antifreeze in the pipes. Actually, I wonder if there would be any point in doing this once from the fresh tank and once from the “city water”? I’m unsure if I should fill up the fresh tank at home – doing so would increase the load we’re pulling, but also would protect us if the water filling station isn’t working.
The anti-freeze we buy is supposedly non-toxic so it probably is perfectly fine to let the drained anti-freeze run into the storm sewers. Considering once I saw a policeman shoveling horse shit into a storm drain after a “meet the public” police event, I wonder how much they care about the water.
Once this de-winterizing is all done, we’ll leave the trailer plugged in overnight so we can leave the heat on to keep anything from freezing, and also give the fridge time to cool down. Then get it packed and ready for an early departure.
Can’t wait!