Mistakes - I’ll go first LOL

JeffroNC

I was inspired by Jenn’s @jkjenn video series on camping mistakes so I thought it would be fun to share our pain and laughter regarding mistakes we have made. Maybe someone can learn from them.

Most recent: Last night while setting up at a campsite I discovered that I left the shore power cable at home or the last campground. So far, local RV places are out of stock. Amazon can’t deliver one until the weekend. No AC and we are heading south. 

Previously I went to a state park with an empty fresh tank and ASSUMED they would have potable water at the dump station. Wrong! I learned that its not that easy to find a place to fill. Ended up getting a 5 gal bottle at Walmart and standing in the rain trying to pour it in to the fresh fill.

Homebodyatheart

I always say that my biggest mistakes are some of my best campfire stories! Ouch on loosing your power cord. As for me, I grew up tent and tent trailer camping, so Ladybug aka “Bug” is my first ever trailer. On my first trip I was camped locally with a group of gals. I had put up my cute new string lights, plugged them into the outside outlet on Bug and they didn’t light up. Was my outlet bad? Just then DH dropped in to check on me, and I told him my problem. He checked all the connections, and called me over to the power pole where he “introduced” me to the breaker switch, flipped it on and I had string lights! And full power! Who knew? Obviously not me! Great post, thanks and this should be a good one! 

Dutch061

I watched a guy open the black valve at a dump station back in July without a "stinky slinky" connected...

That got messy really quick, fortunately I was well enough away to avoid the splatter!

Brad

marchule

(I'm so embarrassed to share this.)  I was showing a friend how you connect your sewer hose to the trailer and place the other end into the dump receptacle.   Once in place, I sez, you open the black valve.  Everything starts to flow as expected.  Oh-oh.  I was so busy explaining things I totally forgot to remove the end cap.  Ever try removing the cap when you have a "live" boa constrictor ready to lunge and surge??  My, oh my.  What a nightmare! 

rcarlson1957

Have a 2018 T@B 320S with the window A/C unit. Put those magnetic plastic air deflectors to help keep the A/C exhaust separate from the intake. Work great. But forgot to take them off after leaving the campsite. As I was going down the road a car honked his horn, rolled down the window and told me something fell off my camper. Pulled over and walked back along the road. Found 1 but not the other. Lucky it didn't fly off and hit a vehicle. I never forget to take them off and put them away when leaving anymore. Our 1st ever trip we took in our T@B a few years ago we forgot our chairs. 

AnOldUR

Not taking our canopy down before the storm hit at uCamp22.

PNWtabber

Mistakes?  Where do I start?????  

Worst goes first.  For compact cookware, I bought GSI Outdoors' Pinnacle Base Camp set.  It includes:   "2 pots, a frypan, 2 nylon strainer lids, cutting board, a folding handle, and stuff/sink sack."  The thing they call a "cutting board" is basically a thin plastic disc and pretty useless as a cutting board--but it nests between the 2 pots and I figured it protected the non-stick surface of the larger pot (see photo). 

So I am set up to camp one evening and put on a small pot of water to make pasta.  Suddenly flames are leaping off my stove (I have an inside kitchen) and the smell of burning plastic hits me.  I grab the pot off the stove and there is the "cutting board" burning and melting on my stove (apparently, the cutting board had stuck to the bottom of the pot when I pulled it out of the kit!).  Somehow I managed to grab that flaming disc and toss it out the open door of my trailer (fortunately I was on a paved parking pad).  A year later, despite all of the scraping and cleaning, I can still smell plastic residue when I use the burner that was involved in this near disaster.  I recently wrote to the manufacturer about this event and urged them to discontinue including the "cutting board" in this kit.  If this can happen once, it could happen again.



It is a good cook set for one or two people, but, if you get one, I suggest removing that plastic "cutting board" from your set.

pthomas745

The drive toward Page, AZ towards the North Rim of the Grand Canyon climbs about 4000 feet to a town called Jabob's Lake.  An Inn, convenience store, big parking lot, lot of people sitting on the Inn's front porch enjoying the day.  From Page, it is about two hours of twisty roads to get there.

Drove through the parking lot, passing the porch full of people, hoping to show off my way cool trailer.

Get out, look around....and discovered the door had remained open for the entire two hour drive. 

Casually reached over, looked inside, and closed the door like "I drive it like this all the time!"  Nothing in the trailer had been disturbed...luckily. 

VictoriaP

Unhitching without chocking trailer wheels. On a slope. It turns out I can in fact hold the trailer in place with just my body, while a nearby tent camper kindly pulled out the chocks from my platform storage and positioned them.

Two lessons learned and hereby passed on: Don’t try to unhitch immediately when you’re overtired. Stupid mistakes are more likely to happen at the end of a long drive. Park, take a break, deal with setup after some rest instead. I’m so careful about monitoring batteries and tanks…and lousy at monitoring my personal energy levels. Don’t be me, take care of your own needs first.

Later discussions with fellow Tabbers produced a much smarter solution if you do forget to chock, one that can be performed solo: Pull the emergency brake cable! My unhitching routine now leaves that just that cable still tethered to the vehicle (with chains & 7 pin undone) until after I finish freeing the coupler from the ball.

Slackers

First winter, I drained but failed to blow out the outdoor shower.  Next season's camping trips resulted in a small amount of water under the galley sink and stove.  It took a few trips to figure out the outdoor shower mixing valve was cracked.  I had to replace the entire Fontana unit.

WayneW

My wife and I recently went on an extended boondocking trip in the middle of nowhere Idaho. We like a gin and tonic at the end of the day - the perfect summertime drink. Our first evening there we discovered we’d packed everything for a nice g&t - ice cubes, tonic, fresh lime. The only thing we forgot was the gin. 

jbajor

WayneW said:

My wife and I recently went on an extended boondocking trip in the middle of nowhere Idaho. We like a gin and tonic at the end of the day - the perfect summertime drink. Our first evening there we discovered we’d packed everything for a nice g&t - ice cubes, tonic, fresh lime. The only thing we forgot was the gin. 

LOL!  my wife would view that as the the ultimate mistake...  she'd probably divorce me!  WAY more important than a charged battery or propane!  I hope all ended well!

Tabaz

(I'm so embarrassed to share this.)  I was showing a friend how you connect your sewer hose to the trailer and place the other end into the dump receptacle.   Once in place, I sez, you open the black valve.  Everything starts to flow as expected.  Oh-oh.  I was so busy explaining things I totally forgot to remove the end cap.  Ever try removing the cap when you have a "live" boa constrictor ready to lunge and surge??  My, oh my.  What a nightmare! 

OMG!!  Not going to ask how you solved this one.

AnOldUR

Tabaz said:

OMG!!  Not going to ask how you solved this one.

Having a hard time visualizing this one. The angle has to be on the end of our slinky before we “place the … end into the dump receptacle.” The tapered end of our angle piece doesn’t have a cap. Some do?

marchule

Yes, it was a blow-out disaster.  The black cap/plug was partially recessed inside the black tube so it wasn't visually obvious - especially when you're semi-distracted trying to explain things.  So I placed the elbow adapter on the hose and then placed the elbow into the dump receptacle.  Opened the black valve.  Nothing.  Oh...

JeffroNC

Update: I picked this item up in case I ever leave my cable behind again. I keep my extension in a second location so this adapter would make it a power cable. It can also be used with a 15 amp adapter for mooch docking.

Chiprchuk

About 40 years ago - We were prepping for our trip. A new fire extinguisher was temporally stored in the camper trash can. We departed and setup our campsite (out in the middle of now where.) Dinner completed my stepfather started up the campfire using the paper trash to start the fire... you guessed it the fire extinguisher was in the fire. Luckily I saw it before it exploded and we pulled it out. Scary but funny.    

dragonsdofly

@Chiprchuk haha, eegads, and welcome to the forum!

rcarlson1957

PNWtabber, have same cookware. Happy with them. Don't take up much room in my small chuck box. That folding cutting board really is useless. I just carry a few of the think plastic cutting mats with me instead. I use felt pot protectors between the pots and pans. Also keeps the removable handle from scratching too. 

rcarlson1957

Somewhere between uCamp and a drive thru PA, DE, MD and VA before heading back to Texas I misplaced and lost my hearing aids. Wife said she was going to scream if I said "huh" one more time. She sounded like Samuel L. Jackson when she said it too! 

techietab

Before boondocking, I always prime my water lines/taps and the Alde tank in 'city connection' mode on the Nautilus, then do the tank fill. I will then proceed to be surprised when one of the taps loses pressure and the pump seems to be doing nothing. I forget to set the Nautilus to 'dry camping' mode every. single. time. Embarrassing but a quick fix.

The first time I unhooked my 320S from my tow vehicle after bringing it home from the dealership, I forgot to put the wheel chocks down first. The slightest bit of force sent it rolling towards my garage, since my driveway is at a ~2.5% grade. Thankfully the camper is light enough that I was able to grab the tongue jack and hold it in place while my wife scrambled to throw chocks behind the wheels. Thankfully have never repeated that potentially costly mistake again.

When drilling through the roof to install a Pepwave 42G antenna array for my LTE modem+router, my positioning was just a hair off from where I'd seen others on this forum successfully punch through with a circular saw. I severed the positive power line running to the rooftop fan. Thankfully this was a very easy fix with some spare wire and butt connectors.

I bought my 320S lightly used. Previous owner had it for a bit under a year (2022 model delivered midyear in 2021), and clearly stored it outdoors. The stock rooftop solar panel had plastic peeling off of it, and the plastic was generally very yellowed and brittle. It looked and felt like the sort of plastic that's usually applied at factories post-production in order to protect from scratches, so I assumed it was intended to be removed. It yanked off cleanly but left adhesive all over the panel. I later learned from this forum that Sunflare applies that layer to protect the panel from UV, and that the panel will have a very short life without it. Whoops. Apparently a batch of panels circa 2021 made it out the door with this particular layer being defective, and mine was probably one of them. Rather than deal with the hassle of engaging Sunflare for a replacement, I removed all the adhesive with a nonabrasive rotary attachment made for removing residue from automotive decals and replaced the protective layer with a 3M automotive protectant film that's intended to block UV. So far it's holding up very well.

RobynE

Hi techietab,

I think your experiences are similar to many new camper owners and those just new to the Nautilus.  I've made the dry camp error every time also! I can totally see me making the solar panel peel mistake too, so now that you took one for the team, I won't be making that same mistake!

Hey, I see you are in Northern Virigina.  I just started a Facebook group "DMV Teardrops" if you use Facebook.  I just started it so we can all post our upcoming trips in case others want to come too.  Earlier this year, we managed to have five T@Bs in a row at Pohick Bay in Lorton, VA plus a NuCamp truck camper was there beside us by pure coincidence! We got a lot of attention!

Robyn

Hoogie69

marchule said:

(I'm so embarrassed to share this.)  I was showing a friend how you connect your sewer hose to the trailer and place the other end into the dump receptacle.   Once in place, I sez, you open the black valve.  Everything starts to flow as expected.  Oh-oh.  I was so busy explaining things I totally forgot to remove the end cap.  Ever try removing the cap when you have a "live" boa constrictor ready to lunge and surge??  My, oh my.  What a nightmare! 

Wow, I’ve done that.  Twice.  Not a catastrophe as there was just a small amount of black in the black tank.  Luckily the hidden plug was at the far end (away from the trailer) of the stinky slinky.  After closing the valve, I lifted the far end, removed the plug, and vewwy vewwy quickly shoved the end where it belonged.  I felt very accomplished after the second time I had to do it but those inset black insert plugs got replaced next with ones I had to remove before connecting anything.  

Tabaz

After unhooking the trailer, I slowly inched my truck forward.  Heard a strange noise and felt a tug as if something was holding on to the back of my truck for a second, then it went away.  I had forgot to unhook the emergency brake release for the trailer.  While being pulled out, the hook on the plastic insert was completely destroyed.  Luckily I was able to put the insert back in its slot in order to unlock the brakes.  BTW, the unit says to put the insert back in within 20 minutes (?).  Ordered a new one and a couple of spares:

https://www.amazon.com/CURT-52020-Replacement-Trailer-Breakaway/dp/B001GN6QS0/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=trailer+emergency+brake+cable&qid=1670948604&sprefix=trailer+emer,aps,200&sr=8-6

AnOldUR

Tabaz said:

BTW, the unit says to put the insert back in within 20 minutes (?).

My guess would be that the electric brakes are a heavy draw on the battery. The 20 minutes is probably to save your battery.

BrianZ

Last year we traveled to Maine and had a number of water-related mishaps along the way.  Here's my previously documented list of our mistakes..
https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/13894/our-recent-camping-mishaps-had-a-water-theme

pak

Just this spring while dewinterizing I connected the charge side of the water pump only. When the system would not come up, after turning on the pump, to pressure timley, I discovered my oversight(water all over my CS-S kitchen.) Towels, airhose, fans and quick action helped prevent any damage. This error will not be repeated by me. I certainly am eligible for some kind of dufus prize.

ColoradoDJ

While coming back from AZ on our first trip ever, the last evening landed us in Frisco, CO. The plan was to just to stay at Walmart. It was early November, cold out and 8,100 feet. I took a look at my inline propane “idiot” gauge and saw it was low. We spent the next 45 minutes calling and driving around trying to get it filled. No such no luck. I could have traded in my “like new” tank but didn’t want to give it up. 

That was mistake #1. There was actually plenty of propane. The high altitude made the “idiot” gauge, only look like it was low. 

Mistake #2. Not installing the high altitude kit I had already purchased before we left. 

Mistake #3. Not bringing enough blankets with us, we froze our butts off that night!! We even tried putting our towels on top of are blankets, ha! 

Lesley_and_Ian

Not latching the window in a sand storm in S Utah.  When we arrived at our campsite and I walked around the side of the camper, I was flabbergasted.  There was a big hole, literally no window and no hardware.  We had to patch it up till we could get to a Walmart when my husband made a new "window" from plastic box lids. 
A new window had to be ordered from Nu Camp and took 6 months to arrive. 
I'll never make that mistake again!

Tabaz

Ingenious solution!!  And doesn't look half bad. Clever.

db_cooper

That is a nice patch job! Still a window!

I'll add we always lock the door when moving, but one day after a quick "rest" stop, I must have forgot.  Drove from somewhere south of Jasper to Lake Louise with the door open, in the rain.  Everything was dry and still there, since the wind holds the door sorta shut, but I felt like an idiot. Especially since the wife noticed first! 😁