If it's Wednesday, this must be Asheville

We settled in last night at a lovely campground in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina. This is our fourth stop in a week. The RV travel ritual of stop, set up, take down, drive, stop, set up, take down, etc. without more than a couple of days between cycles gets a bit tedious, at least for us. Suffice it to say that Leonard and I both look forward to the luxury of our upcoming longer-term stay in Virginia.

Why weren't Kong's amber lights activated by Truckzilla's turn

signal? Don't you just love a good mystery?

All continues to proceed reasonably well, the exception being our rather exciting discovery that somewhere between Columbia and Cape Girardeau, Missouri the 5th-wheel's turn signals had stopped working. This unfortunate
revelation came during a monster rainstorm that hit Cape Girardeau just before we intended to leave.

After several minutes spent lying under the truck in the mud whilst groping for a loose wire or some other potentially easy-to-fix cause of the problem, Leonard gave up and suggested we
proceed to Paducah, Kentucky sans signals. Our route took us through Kentucky's back roads, so not much traffic, and we arrived sans incident.


Our busted buss - so small,

yet so important

A good night's sleep and a few cups of freshly-brewed coffee later, Leonard resumed his examination of Kong's electrical system.
Aided by an RV technician who just happened to be in the park at the time, Leonard spotted the likely culprit. Turns out our buss was busted! Here's why that meant trouble.

During towing, Kong's exterior lights are connected to Truckzilla so that when the driver brakes or signals a turn, it won't come as a surprise to our fellow travelers. Key to this is something called a signal separator, which allows Truckzilla's red directional signals to flash amber at Kong's rear. Without getting too technical [read: I don't know what the heck I'm talking about here so will gloss over this part], a small breaker box, or "buss" protects the separator from a power surge. For some as-yet unknown reason, that breaker wasn't automatically resetting as designed.



Separation anxiety of a different kind

After a few calls to the manufacturer, a couple of FedEx deliveries, and two extra overnights in lovely Paducah, we were back in business!

For me, this was a lesson not only in RV electronics 101 but also in RV trip planning. Many RVers describe their travel plans as being "etched in Jello." Now I know why. With so many moving parts - literally and figuratively speaking - in play at any given moment, one must learn to expect the unexpected and adjust accordingly.

Before closing, I need to give a "shout out" to the folks at RV's for Less in Knoxville, Tennessee. We spent a couple of days there as RVFL's techs ran through a list of warranty repairs we'd identified.
The dealership's reputation for integrity and solid work is well-earned.

I'm also throwing in a brief photo journal about our stop in Cave City, Kentucky, home of Mammoth Cave National Park and birthplace of my 3rd great-granny Lucinda Jane Smith. Enjoy!

Friday, we complete our 1,200 mile journey to Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area. If you happen to be in the area, stop by and say "hello." We'll leave a (turn) light on for you.

Mammoth Cave is turning "green." Note the solar panels on the roof of this visitors center. There are also a rainwater

capture system that serves the park's non-potable water needs and vehicles powered on liquid propane and electricity.

Mammoth Cave's original entrance. The cave got it's name because it's mammoth, as in really, really big. Of the estimated

1,000 miles of karst tunnels, only about 400 have been surveyed to date.

What Mammoth Cave lacks in natural beauty, it makes up for in history. Miners began working Mammoth Cave in the late 1700's. There was once even a tuberculosis hospital housed inside. The thinking was that TB could be cured by having the inflicted sole breath cool air for long periods of time. It can't.

Nearby Diamond Caverns is really spectacular. This cave got its name when the slave who discovered it reported to his owner that the cave's walls sparkled with diamonds. In fact, they sparkle with water. These stalactites and stalagmites are still growing. Think you'd like to watch that? Think again! It takes 350-500 years to form one cubic inch of mineral deposit.



 

There's a first time for everything

It happened so fast I hardly had time to become nervous. One minute, I was resting comfortably as we cruised down I-70; the next I was behind the wheel towing Kong and thinking, "Oh, my god, I'm doing it!"

My first turn at towing came as a surprise and without prior discussion with my camping partner. In fact, Leonard so nonchalantly suggested that we switch places that I almost missed what he was trying to say.

Watching the "Tow Your 5th Wheel

Trailer Like a Pro" video from RV

RV Education 101 prepped us for

towing.

In retrospect, it's probably better that my life as a towing virgin ended without a lot of forethought. I might otherwise have worked myself into a jittery stupor pondering the tremendous responsibility associated with moving 26,000 pounds (mas o menos) of RV + truck in traffic at 65 mph. Add to that the knowledge that it's your house behind you and one wrong move could trash it, and the prospect can be downright nauseating. Because there wasn't time to think, I can probably best describe how I was feeling using the words of that great philosopher Alfred E. Neuman. "What, me worry?"

After about an hour, I pulled us off the highway and into a truck stop for gas and lunch. In St. Louis traffic, mind you, I'd managed several traffic merges, a construction zone and three turns (to get to the truck stop). We both judged the experience as a successful one.

Why all the hoop-de-doo about my learning to tow? Just go to any RV gathering and ask who tows their rigs. You'll find that the overwhelming majority of raised hands belong to the males in the room. Fact is, most women do not learn to tow (or drive) their RV's.

I knew from the start that not only did I want to tow our 5er for the experience of it, but it just seemed the smart thing to do. After all, what if something happened to Leonard and he couldn't drive? Or, more likely, what if he just wanted a break from driving?

It's not clear to me why women are generally hesitant to take on this challenge. I just know that
my glass-ceiling-braking momma would be proud to know that her girl had stepped up.

Moving KongZilla down the road can be intimidating. Hard to imagine, but many 

RV's out there are even longer than this!

Not to be outdone, Leonard decided to take on another special RV challenge (something I have yet to do). He backed Kong into place. To this point, we've been able to avoid the whole backing-up thing by staying at parks that have pull-through sites. Eventually, that party will come to an end, which makes learning to move in reverse essential.

Lest you think this is not a big deal, imagine this. You're driving an eight-and-a-half foot wide, 55-foot long box using only your side mirrors to gauge progress. You have to push the thing
precisely between the marked lines of a parking space without touching any nearby objects.
Complicating this is the fact that the 5th-wheel's hitch acts like a hinge, so the trailer you're pulling doesn't track with the truck. Rather, it has it's own pivot point. All this going on can deliver a real
antacid-popping experience!

Needless to say, backing up requires both good driving skills and lots of patience. Leonard
executed his first go with the calm of a veteran trucker. Well done!

Cape Girardeau's Red House Interpretive Center is a replica

of the original trading post, owned by Louis Lorimier whose

family played host to Meriwether Lewis in 1803.

Another first for the week: we spent time actually touring the sights at one of our stops. This is news because with our previous camps it seemed we always had a bunch of chores to deal with and really couldn't stop to smell the proverbial roses. Cape Girardeau, our current locale, proved the exception. We spent a good bit of Saturday wandering through the center of this historic, charming and old (by U.S. standards) city.

(If you're even in the area, this place is worth checking out.)







The Red House is full of interesting relics depicting life

on the U.S. frontier in the late 18th/early 19th centuries.

A typical 18th-century garden with herbs to serve the

household's kitchen. (What? No Safeway?)

This replica of the garrison at Fort D was built to preserve the last

of four Civil War sites build to protect Cape Girardeau from

capture by the Confederate Army.

The Cape G garrison, under the command of a young Hiram

Ulysses Grant (a.k.a Ulysses S. Grant) set up painted logs to look

like cannons, making the fort appear better armed than it was.

No doubt, many more firsts lie ahead of us on this adventure, some good, some not-so-good. I guess if it all went smoothly, they wouldn't call it an "adventure," now would they?

Moving on, drying out, and avoiding the black cone of death

We pulled up stakes this past Saturday - after nearly a month in Topeka visiting family and friends - and headed to northeast Missouri for a brief stop to see more family as we progress eastward to our four-month volunteer "job" at Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area.

These moves get a bit easier as Leonard and I become more familiar with the myriad of related tasks, our growing confidence buoyed by our attempt to create a fool-proof, no-way-we-can-forget-anything departure checklist. Using said list, we readied Kong and Truckzilla for Saturday's trek.

All started well, thanks to Leonard who managed to hitch truck to RV in one easy maneuver. This "third time's the charm" occurrence made us feel pretty good about our abilities as novice RVers. Alas, our enthusiasm would soon be, well, dampened.

Kong's water/waste control center

Upon arriving at our new campsite, we began ticking off our fool-proof, no-way-we-can-forget-anything arrival checklist. All was proceeding smoothly until I heard Leonard shout, "Is there water running inside the RV?"

"No," I yelled, secure in the knowledge that when I opened that kitchen faucet to relieve pressure in the water line so Leonard could disconnect us from service in Topeka I surely must have remembered to turn it off. "I'll go check."

Sure enough, when I entered the kitchen, the faucet was wide open leaving both kitchen island and surrounding flooring glistening with water. It seems yours truly indeed had forgotten to turn it off. (Good grief!)

Thankfully, Leonard had shut off the water at the main connection before any real damage could occur to either our home or our senses of humor.

On the bright side, I completed my first solo attempt at draining our black tank - the tank that holds all things that go into the toilet until the tank can be dumped into a proper sewage receptacle. This job, crucial though it may be, is one no RVer relishes, and you definitely won't read about in any RV lifestyle promotional materials. Still, someone's got to do it. This time, that someone was me.

Sewer Solution connection to Kong's
black tank. No "stinky slinky" here!

To understand just how offensive this task can be, it might help for me to explain that the hose linking black tank to sewer is known in the RV world as the "stinky slinky." Slinky, because the tubing is made of corrugated plastic. Stinky, because even the most thorough rinsing won't clear out every bit of waste hidden in its folds. That nasty thing travels in the underbelly of your rig where it can get quite fragrant, especially during hot summer days. Lovely!






Fortunately for us, Leonard discovered another wonderful RV product, the aptly-named Sewer Solution. Its design features a macerating chamber that breaks up waste as it leaves the black
 tank and a hose connection that sends fresh water into the tank to clear out whatever materials don't discharge by gravity. Because the hoses in this system are smooth-sided, no particulate can find refuge.

The result is a much cleaner process with a lower risk of contaminating the surrounding area. (Use your imagination on that one.) Better still is the reduced chance of ending up with that most dreaded of all RV disasters: the "black cone of death." (You can probably work that out for yourself, too.)


Tracking connections can get complicated.
Note the gloves, important in case of a leak.

This day brings us dry carpet, sunny skies, and a move to Columbia, MO. Perhaps it will also provide me with the ability to remember to shut off that darned faucet (fingers crossed).




 

Chow time!

I love cooking, especially the kind done by someone else. So when Leonard took up the craft as a kind of hobby, I was thrilled to support his interest. Still am.

In order for Leonard to practice his cooking skills from an RV, we needed to manage the limitations of Kong's small (but mighty) kitchen, starting with space.

 

The kitchen takes up about 20% of Kong's 390 ft. sq. living area.

RV size matters when it comes to kitchen counter space and storage area. It also affects campground options. Our desire to stay at public parks (state and national) drove us to select the shortest model possible so as to accommodate facilities built before the age of “big rigs” (i.e. 5th-wheels and motor coaches 40' and longer). We ultimately decided on a trailer with an exterior length of just over 39' – long enough to keep us from feeling cramped, short enough to accommodate most public sites. 

Leonard started by looking at the stove. It has three burners, all fired by liquid propane (LP). We prefer gas cooking, so that would be fine, especially for camping at sites that lack electric hookups. But what about those times when we needed additional cooking surface or when electric made more sense? Leonard's search for answers revealed what I think may be the best invention since roll-on deodorant: induction cooking.

An induction burner expands cooking area
and adds an electric option to our gas stove.

Induction cooking elements use electromagnetism to heat a cooking vessel rather than the surrounding surface. It requires less energy and is very sensitive to changes in power level. This makes burnt food and boiled-over liquids (both of which I'm prone to) less likely.

 

Leonard found a single-burner unit that slips right into Kong's limited kitchen storage space. The only hindrance to adding this to a cook's repertoire is that induction cooking requires using magnetic pots. Since we needed to buy new cookware anyway, having left our old set in Costa Rica, we went searching for a set. This brings me to Leonard's next great discovery: nestable magnetic cookware.

Nestable cookware with removable
handles: 5 pots for the space of 1.

He learned of this while perusing the RV message boards. People raved about pots designed specifically for small-space living. They had detachable handles, could be used for any type of cooking (except microwave) and all the pans and lids bundled together for easy storage. What's more, the non-stick surface really was non-stick and durable. A set of 5 pots, 2 lids, 2 handles and storage cord runs about $250, definitely more than we normally spend for such things, but the cost has been worth it.

Next came the matter of an oven. Our RV model came with both conventional and convection/microwave options. Applying the RV rule of thumb of, “entertains 6, feeds 4, sleeps 2,” we thought it unlikely we would ever bake anything larger than a frozen pizza so asked the manufacturer to install drawers in place of the conventional oven. We probably wouldn't have used that for anything more than storing pans anyway, so this proved to be another good choice.

Other items we included were a residential-style refrigerator and small-capacity dishwasher (both good choices) and what has thus far turned out to be a completely unnecessary garbage disposal.

There you have it. RV cooking as we like it.

Should you decide to track us down on the road, we'll be the ones with the walking shoes and weight set out front. After all, we've got to burn off all of chef Leonard's tasty creations somehow, now don't we?