The Shakedown Tour
The weather was getting nicer, though the evenings are still cold. I had planned what I thought would be my shakedown trip the 2nd week of June after I get back from Switzerland, but I really didn’t want to wait until then to take my camper out for the first time, so I found an RV park pretty close to home, just 20 miles away, but on the border of Nevada and California. It had full hook up so I thought why not, so I booked for April 26-28.
The weather wasn’t predicted to be nice and I almost canceled, but I didn’t. Even though it planned to rain at least on Friday, I decided to go. I would face all types of weather on my travels and this would give me a sense of what it would be like managing in the rain.
The park is called Bordertown, located on the edge of Reno. In truth I expected a dump. There are a lot of RV parks here in the Reno area and not all of them are nice. I spent the week making sure I had everything from bins to put the hoses, levelers, tools and anything else I thought I would need to run the camper. I packed the food, water filter, cloths (luckily it was just for the weekend, I’m not a light packer).
Food was my biggest unknown. I knew there were restaurants close by so if nothing else I could just eat there, but I wanted to make the full experience for the shakedown. I tend to cook a lot with the microwave and oven, but the camper doesn’t have those. In the end I bought burgers, pork chops, salad stuff and variety of other snacks and breakfast stuff to get me by. I know a lot of people try to mirror the RV living to their house living, but I wanted it to feel something different, like I was camping, I guess I’ll get better at it over time.
The day came. Luckily I was working at home and left work early. I went to the storage unit, having packed everything the night before all I had to do was hook the camper up and off I could go. There are two things that people fear the most when first owning the camper, backing up and driving on the expressway. I’ve gotten over the fear of backing up; and no people you don’t have to get it in the hole on the first try, it’s not sex. The expressway here I come.
The rain had just started when I left, lightly sprinkling while hooking up the camper, but as I moved north the weather got more severe, you know those dark clouds that will surely bring scary rains, and it didn’t disappoint. The rains came gushing down, but with the sway bar attached, all went well. I pulled off the expressway, 30 minutes later, wow that was fast, stopped at the checkin place to register. The guy at the desk was nice and he moved me to a spot right in the front near the shower and bathroom. When I reserved I purposely chose not to be near the facilities, but I didn’t have the heart to say “no thank you” and in the end I was good with it. I ended up using the facilities.
The park is located right off the expressway, but you wouldn’t know it. It’s not huge which was nice and doesn’t have any of those amenities as the larger parks. You have views of the mountains and it seemed mostly older folks were staying there. By the setup of some of the slots, some people look like they are long-term campers.
Yes, I was the tiniest of the campers, it seemed like a competition “who could out do each other in size”, ok not really, but I know the teardrop campers tend to be the smallest. Initially I was like “it would be nice to have more room”, but mine is easy to setup and take down and go, and I’ll be able to go places the other larger RVers can’t go.
Let the fun begin…
I got everything hooked up and by the time everything was hauled inside, I was completely wet and cold. The weather was dropping, by evening it would get down into the low 30s.
After seeing some pics from the FB forums I decided to put the table down and make it into a longer sitting area, but it ended up just being a place to put stuff to get it out of the way and then gave me no place to eat…by Sunday I had decided it would be put back into a table.
The Water
Water is essential to life and one must have it even in the camper too. I have two 7 gallon water jugs and had filled one half full to take, just incase I needed drinking water before I could get the water hooked up. I filled the water filter and went back outside to hook the power and water up.
It was already 4pm, but luckily the rain was starting to lighten up. I plugged in the surge protector and yea, the power was good to plug the camper into shore power.
I hooked up the water pressure regulator, then the water filter, then turned on the water to see if the pressure regulator worked before hooking to the camper. All looked good so I hooked to the camper and “f#ck”, water started to run out of one of the drains at the bottom of the camper. I knew the drains were for overflow for various reason so I just needed to figure why this drain. (the pic on the left is from the next morning, but wanted to show the water hooked up with the filter.)
So I got down and checked the valves under the camper to ensure they were closed, they were and the water wasn’t coming out from these holes.
Well, this is what “shakedown” is all about, figuring the systems out. I’ve learned that even new campers don’t come to us all worked out.
I pulled out the phone, got on Facebook and asked the NuCamp forum some questions about what this possibly could be. The people on the forums are so responsive and kind. We all help each other. I put the question out and decided to go to the restaurant at the Bordertown Casino to eat. It was getting late, I was tired, wet and cold and didn’t really want to deal with cooking.
I really didn’t know what to expect (sorry didn’t take pics of the casino building. It’s not Vegas or even downtown Reno so get those images out of your head). The building is very dated, surely it hadn’t been kept up over the years. I walked into the back of the casino, it was smallish, lots of slot machines and yes smokers. These pics are from their web so don’t really represent how it really was in person.
The restaurant wasn’t very big. The vibe was very dated restaurant you’d find in a small town that has passed it’s prime. The menu is what you’d expect from a place like this, but maybe you need to be my age to understand what I’m talking about, no gourmet food. When I sat down it felt like I was going to hit the floor. The benches no longer had support in them which made it awkward to eat sitting so low; I should had moved to the counter.
The bus girl came by to take my drink order, I asked her what IPAs they had. She looked at my like she didn’t know what an IPA was, instead of going to find out what beers they had, she started to ramble off “Bud, Bud light and one other beer”, I had the other beer. I made it through dinner and headed back to the camper. The food was passable.
I settled in for the night. I checked my phone to see what suggestions people had for my problem, none I hadn’t already tried, but it was late, I would figuring it out in the morning. For now I just needed to get the sound working on the TV. The TV sound is hooked up to the sound system in the camper, I had to just switch the radio to AUX and sound, but of course no easy instructions.
Internet
I had purchased the Pepwave router from MobileMustHave a while back. I am using T-Mobile unlimited service. I also purchased a Fire TV stick for streaming and no problems all weekend, of course I noticed a cell towner right near the park so that could be the reason for great reception.
The silver device on the right of the pic is the water filter. A lot of campers use these system; this one even has a UV light attached, but I found it’s too big sitting on the counter, I need to figure something else out.
It was a bit chilly in the camper, but not enough for me to give it a thought, so I finally got into bed, turned the TV on had a beer and watched some shows. At some point I noticed it had gotten cold in the camper, I think it was 32 degs outside so I went and turned the heater on. Because it’s so quiet, I couldn’t really tell if it was working.
The camper uses the Alde system for heat. It’s an ambient heat and very quiet not like some of the other campers with the blower systems that come up quickly but are very loud. The problem with the Alde heater is it does take a long to for heat to finally make an appearance. I think it was probably an hour when I noticed the warm air, but once it got going, it was quiet and kept the camper toasty warm all night long.
Saturday
I did have a restless night which I expected. The park was quiet, no dogs barking or kids playing outside, I actually wondered if people could hear the TV through the camper walls, but since no one banged on my door I guess I was ok.
The sun was out, phew so I grabbed my camera, went to the facilities and walked around a bit to take some pics of the park, very different in the light. It was pretty.
I went back to the camper to make breakfast before I tried to solve the water issue. During the night I had a thought on what it could be, but I’d need to take the bed apart to get under it to check one of the values; I also did additional searching online and found an answer to my “thought” from the night before.
I got the food out on the counter, egg whites, tomatoes, toast, avocado, but first coffee. I pulled the camping cookware out, heated the water, yea the stove worked and used a press to make coffee.
While at one of my Walmart trips, I noticed they had a lot of “MyMini” appliances. I bought this toaster and one other. They are perfect and fits in the drawer right below. One thing I need to workout is how to keep the coffee hot. I will be trying the percolator on my next trip. This way I can just turn the stove on again to heat the coffee back up. I also need cream. I used oat milk, but love my cream.
With breakfast done, I moved to figure the water out. I pulled the bedding and mattresses back to expose the head of the bed. Unscrewed the 3 screens and pulled the board off and set it near the bath door.
I leaned over the Alde system and looked for the flapper tab. I knew they should be in the down position.
The one on the right side was up, so I lowered it down in the horizontal position, this better do it otherwise I’m giving up and going home…kidding. As I was looking at this compartment with all the hoses and wires, it dawned on me that someone should do a better job at cord management, it was just everywhere like a bowl of spaghetti.
I made sure the Nautilus was set for city water, turned on the water and no water coming from the drain. I could hear it going into the systems. I went inside, turned on the kitchen sink and liftoff, water.
I then went around to all the faucets to let the water run through, it was like a miracle. Ok not really a miracle, but you never know what will happen. I’ve heard of people not getting heat or other issues during their trips and so far all seemed to go well.
I turned on the hot water heater and within a short period of time, I was getting warm water, so far, so good. Next would be to fill the fresh water tank and see if the camper water pump worked on “dry camping mode”.
I went outside and, adjusted the Nautilus system to PowerFill Tank mode and let it go. I went inside to check the tank status so I wouldn’t overfill the fresh tank.
On a side note. This will be one of my first complaints. The hole on the bottom of the Nautilus system where the hose is supposed to come up through is too close to the back of the box. I couldn’t get the hose to bend in a sharp curve down. The hole should be all the way forward. I even tried putting one of the 90 deg angle attachments and it aligned to the front of the hole so, once again couldn’t get a hose attached and go down. In the end I just let the hose come out the front and laid the cover down. At some point I may modify the Nautilus door with a hole for the hose to go through.
When the water tank was full, I came out, shut off the water. went back inside, turned on the water pump and nothing. I could hear the pump going, but no water came out of the faucets. I did some searching on the forums and tried the suggestions. I pulled the bed apart again to get at the water pump. Took off a filter, it was good. Then it dawned on me, I forgot to set the Nautilus to Dry Camping mode and the pump will only pump water in this mode. Phew, this was an easy adjustment.
I went out, reset the Nautilus, went in, turned on the pump, opened the faucet and there it was, water. We had water again. I wanted to fill and drain the water tanks a couple times to get everything out from winterization. Once I emptied the fresh water tank into the gray tank, I went out, hooked up the sewer hose and emptied the tanks.
At this point I decided to go for a drive since all seemed to be going well. There was more to figure out like what to do with all the stuff inside the camper, but the day was pretty and I needed a break. I went and showered at the facilities, got in the truck and off I went.
I ended up making a burger and a salad for dinner, but with the table in the down position, I had no were to sit with all my stuff on the benches. I sat on the bed, watched some TV, un-corked some premium beer and had somewhat of a celebration. I had brought a chair for outside and there was a table and chairs for each spot, but it was too cold. I turned the heater on and settled down.
Sunday
Sunday was another nice day and so I walked the parameter of the park after noticing some other views, so got in a few last minute shots of the mountains.
The drive home was uneventful. After I backed the camper in the storage I cleaned, put the table back up and took some shots of the inside of the camper. One idea I took from someone on the FB forum was getting the large cutting board, put feet on it so it could sit over the stove or sink. This was perfect. Gave much more usable counter space without worrying about breaking the glass.
My overall assessment so far:
fix the hose issue in the Nautilus system.
Better instructions. Maybe have a “cliff notes” version so people don’t have to spend hours thumbing through the various books.
How to keep coffee hot.
How to find a place for everything.
The front cushions are uncomfortable so will need to be replaced, This could be a nice change NuCamp could do is offer better cushions, can’t be that much money considering how much we pay for the camper.
Easy to tow.
Easy to setup and take down.
Could use more outlets, maybe the one for the tv expand that into a row of 4.
I like the coziness of the bed area, but occasionally the heater would buzz/hum and my head was right on top of it so was annoying.
The bathroom sink was too low so ended up using the kitchen sink for brushing my teeth.
I like it. I can see really enjoying going places with it.