Back by Demand: The Trailer Chronicles Continue...

Apparently I have an audience. And my audience is demanding. Yes, I was scolded this weekend. It seems that not everyone has an RSS feed set up like I do and so some people are actually so interested in reading my stories about camping with my Practically Perfect Tent Trailer that they are coming here every day or so looking for an update only to be terribly disappointed by finding incomplete months old Half Marathon trip reports.

And so for "You Know Who You Are" I apologize and I am forcing myself to find time to update you all on the glorious stories of camping with our Trailer. (And by forcing I do not mean that I do not like doing this. I just need to learn better time management skills. Either that or I need a live in housekeeper like Alice Davis (The Brady Bunch Alice Davis, not the Disney Legend.) I think that is truly my problem. Some people were just not born with a housekeeping gene and I am one of them.) But I digress...

When we left off with the saga of the tent trailer, I told you the story of the 50-point turn from heck in the MGM-Grand parking structure on the Las Vegas strip and changing a flat trailer tire in the rain in Baker, California. I also entertained you with a lovely photo tour from my driveway.

Now if there's anything I love to do, I love to shop. The problem with shopping for me is two-fold:

1- In my perfectionism and tendency to set unreasonable expectations, I get these ideas in my head of EXACTLY what I want and EXACTLY what I need to have.

2- I'm frugal. I want the best quality for the best price. I like to buy things on sale. Or with coupons. But then I worry that what if they run out of what I need before I can get it??

Fortunately we already had quite a bit of camping equipment on hand already. We dragged the boxes out of the garage and I sorted through it to figure out what we had, what was worn and what we still needed. I made lists. I made lots of lists. I knew that two sets of plastic drawers from Le Tarjay would be perfect for utensils, cooking tools, chopping boards, and so forth. I got new silicone spatulas from Bed, Bath and Beyond. They are teal, plum and some other color. They're jewel tones and I love jewel tones. Very pretty.

I needed a paper towel holder. I wanted a set of mixing bowls with lids, lightweight so they did not add too much weight to the trailer, stacking so they would not take up too much space, and I really did not want to spend more than $5 on them, $10 max but that was really pushing it. I looked at several stores for those bowls. I went on several trips to Target looking for those bowls. On one trip when we were in a random aisle at a Target that was not our normal store, Doc found a perfect set of bowls! I was so happy.

No, really - cheap, lightweight mixing bowls that could double as serving bowls. I was HAPPY!

I really wanted a bigger variety of pots and pans than what I already had. I was using random pots that I had collected over the years. By collected I mean "When various elderly relatives died, I inherited a really old pot." I do not mean to sound disrespectful or ungrateful to my late grandfather. He was a fine man. But the pot was old when I acquired it. I still have some of his good cooper bottom pots in my kitchen but I did not put my "good" pots in my camping buckets. Who does that? I decided to try to find some better pots and pans. Except that I really did not want something too heavy in the trailer and I really did not want to spend a lot of money on trailer pots and pans considering we just bought a BRAND NEW trailer. I actually found a lovely nonstick set of pots and pans at Target on sale! The largest skillet is probably smaller than I would ideally like but it works!

I may have also picked up some acrylic wine glasses.

The "master" bed is bigger than a queen but so thin that I figured queen sheets would work. We bought a waterproof mattress cover one day at Bed, Bath & Beyond. Let me just say now that was a mistake. We have a water proof sheet thing on Captain Stubborn's bed and it is not plastic so I somehow assumed that this waterproof mattress would resemble that. I know at the time I had a really good reason for thinking that I would need a waterproof mattress pad. It came from our trip to Barstow when water condensed under our sleeping bags onto our air mattress. In restrospect, we have no reason for a waterproof mattress and that is just as well because the thing stank like perm solution. I shall spoil that part of our inaugural trip right now. Perm.Solution. It was horrible. Before our second trip we went to Target and bought a new mattress pad. For sheets I selected navy blue knit sheets from Target. We put the sheets on the bed and use a sleeping bag as a comforter. We purchased two pillows to keep in the trailer.

I went to a lot of stores to put together a game box for the trailer: Target, Toys R Us and... Dollar Tree! We have a bucket with Rummikub, playing cards, Mille Borne, my homemade Yahtzee and homemade mancala games. We have some game books like word searches and sudoku. I put together a pencil bag of mechanical pencils and pens. There are some inexpensive ball toys, too.

We even went to Camping World. I had really high hopes for Camping World. Now, don't get me wrong, Camping World has some cool stuff. At Camping World I found a piece of artificial grass that is designed to wrap around the trailer step, secured with cable ties. With each step we can brush off our shoes before we enter the trailer. Very handy dandy, yes, indeed. One might even say "Easy Peezy Lemon Squeezy". I think if I had a bigger trailer I might appreciate Camping World a bit more. They had a lot of stuff but I really found I could buy a lot of the things for inside the trailer for less elsewhere. We eyed the external gray tanks (oooooh.... ahhhhh.... holding tanks for waste water! With handles that can hook onto the tow hook on the Mommymobile so we can drive them to the dump stations! ooooooooh... ahhhh...) But because our first trip would be to a full-hook-up site, we passed on our first visit.

The sad and lonely external waste tank. But the over the tow hook handle is very nifty.

Then there was the plain stupid fun.

From the Target Dollar Department (gotta love the Target Dollar Department!!) I found some little buckets and rectangular containers. They have a galvanized look and embossed flowers on them. We use one to hold our keys. All the keys just get dumped in one on a counter so we can find them easily when we need them. The buckets are awesome for plastic utensils and napkins. I have one rectangle by my bed to hold my cell phone, watch, etc when I go to bed. Cute. Cute. Cute! (and perky!)

I also found little rugs in the "Not Quite Dollar Department" at Target. We figured out that the entrance to the trailer was too narrow for a bathroom rug but these rugs for $2.50 were just the right size. We have some turtle rugs, some shark rugs and some whale rugs. For $2.50 I picked up a few for when these get too worn and frayed from use and washing.

Almost immediately after buying the trailer I called my mom. My mom crochets. When I graduated from high school she and I went together to Super Yarn Mart! and flipped through the pattern books. We found two afghan patterns that she would make for me to take to my college dorm with me. One of those patterns has become a legend in our family. It uses three to four colors of yarn and is called "Kittens in a Row". Because each "row" of kittens is a different color, you can see their "paws" hanging down to the rows below. She made that afghan for me. Then one for herself and one for my sister. She made one for DaddyDoc when he went to graduate school. She made one for my cousin who went to college "with me". She made one out of all white baby yarn when we were married and we used it for each of our sons' baptisms. She made a pink baby version when the doctor said I was expecting a girl. She went to the store the day my "daughter" was born with a Y-chromosome and bought new yarn. When he was a few days old she came to bring him his blue and green colored blanket. We have three blankets in my family room "colors" and each of my boys has his own "Big Boy Blanket".

So even before I had the trailer in person, I ordered the yarn and had the yarn shipped to my mom and she made a trailer blanket.

We had to pick a place to break in the trailer. Ideally we would have someplace local so we would not have to drive too far should something happen to the Mommymobile or the trailer. I wanted full hook-ups so that we would not have to find ourselves running out of resources or overfilling a grey tank. And I wanted something with plenty for our family and friends to do. Mr. Enabler suggested Vail Lake in Temecula, California. Vail Lake is a private club resort but non-members can make reservations as well. We found a weekend that would work for the Enablers, the Very Good Friends and even my friend the Pastry Chef could join us! I called Vail Lake and the woman on the phone could not have been nicer. She was very friendly, cracked jokes and when I asked about a particular area of the campground, she steered me away from some undesirable sites.

The only thing left to do was to come up with a name. One friend asked if I planned to name the trailer and I liked the idea. I really wanted to come up with a name that fit a trailer. I had an idea but worried that it might offend someone whose mother shared the name. I spent some time talking with some friends about trailer people. One friend spoke of her grandmother and I asked her grandmother's name. It was PERFECT. I loved it!! But I worried I would offend my friend. She promised she would not be offended.

And so I had the Practically Perfect Name for the Practically Perfect Trailer: Opal.