Timmer's Travel Trailer Tales

The second night's sleep was as pleasant as the first one. Overnight there were rain showers but it was just overcast when we exited the trailer. We packed up everything on the inside and I raised the stabilizer jacks to their parked positions and stowed their pads. I'm finding that the manual raising of the jacks works just fine so I'll skip using a drill for now. Maybe later in my advanced age I'll succumb to using a drill mounted socket. I raised the trailer tongue and slipped it over the ball hitch on the truck and secured it. I applied some upward pressure on the hitch with the tinge jack and installed the equalizer bars and anti-sway bar. I disconnected the power cord and stowed it. We did a last check of everything and then headed off to the on-site RV sewer dump station where we emptied out black and grey tanks for the first time. This went well and there was water to rinse the black tank. With the dirty deeds done, we plotted our course to our cruise fr

We woke up at 8am after a restful night's sleep. The flannel sheets did their job and it was nice having a nearby toilet for the duties that come with old age. We cooked up some breakfast (ham, eggs, & hashbrowns) as well as some oatmeal for Angela.   We walked up to the gift store and the Commons and learned that we could in fact purchase a Senior Off Season Pass and that it would apply to our current stay. The Pass cost $75 which was roughly what we paid for our two night regular stay. But we received a $25 per night credit for having a Senior Pass. All of our future winter Washington State Park stays will be free unless we want to use electricity which will be $10 per night. What a deal! The Coastal Artillery Museum was now open at 11AM so we watched a couple of introductory movies which were good before touring the museum and purchasing a few souvenirs. We walked around the grounds visiting the former balloon barn (now a performance hall), the cemetery, former PX, th

We wanted a location that would allow us to test the new trailer's systems and be relatively close to home. Fort Worden State Park is located 106 miles from our home on the Olympic Peninsula just north of Pt. Townsend. It was originally a coastal defense fort for around 50 years ending in 1953 when it was transferred to the State of Washington where it was used as a medical facility until 1971 when Governor Evans transferred it to the Parks Department. It's thrived as a park and is quite popular in the summer and as we observed, even in the winter. The drive over was easy and we arrived around 1pm and checked in at the Commons Building. We already had site #31 but just needed to provide our truck license number. We found our site and easily set up for the first time. Angela cooked up some ramen for lunch as our first meal. Afterwards, we walked to one of the gun emplacements and then along the beach before walking up to the Commons area once again. Along the way, anothe

Several weeks ago we purchased a brand new travel trailer to replace our aging small motor home. I was very tired of climbing up into the overhead bunk to sleep and our grandkids were needing more room as they are getting older. They like traveling with us and we like traveling with them. Plus it's one less vehicle to maintain a power plant system on.  What's really significant about this purchase is that it's the first vehicle that we've ever purchased that was brand new. I've always purchased used vehicles and have had pretty good luck with them. But for this trailer, we both had been impressed with another model that we saw last July when driving back from the beach. Throughout our long overseas trip to Australia, we continued to talk about it and check availability. Upon our return, we paid a visit to Angela's brother and sister in law and looked at a few trailers but couldn't find the exact model we sought after. They had also just purchased a n