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| Beauty and The Beast. John and Chloe's rented Truck Camper |
Hitching Towed Haul to the back of the Toadmobile is always an intricate process but just too boring for non-caravan types, so I'll just gloss over that bit - a bit. Towed Haul weighs in at around seven thousand pounds, about three and a half old fashioned tons, with about one thousand of those pounds (half a ton) at the point at which you connect the caravan to the hitch ball. That's far too much for the rear axle of the car to take so we have a system of weight distribution installed. It acts a bit like a wheel barrow, adding leverage and moving the fulcrum closer to the centre of the car, not subtracting weight but spreading it over the two axles of the car and the two axles of the caravan. It's dashed handy in that it means our back end isn't dragging on the road and our headlights are not pointing skywards, which is always an advantage when driving. It also helps the overall stability when travelling at speed, because you don't want three and half tons of aluminium and plywood getting out of control.
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| The doin's at the back |
It's only a short run down to Rondeau but it necessarily includes a section on the grid system that makes up our city's roads. Given that the car and trailer combined run to about forty five feet in length, with a bend about a third of the way along, the many right angle turns on narrow and busy roads can be a tester. We have a couple of extended mirrors on the car for seeing behind Towed Haul, but they're better employed, along with the car's usual mirrors, to give me a view of where the caravan's wheels are as I turn. As with any long vehicle, I have to overshoot the turns a bit as well as keeping an eye out for the toes of pedestrians and the hoods of inappropriately situated prams. I've only bumped the curb once and not yet hit anyone, so things are going well so far.
The Municipality of Chatham-Kent doesn't have the most exciting topography in Canada, or Ontario for that matter, but a cross country run through the fields of ripe corn on a sunny Friday afternoon takes some beating. It may not be spectacular but it's all neat and tidy and really very pleasing to the eye, especially when the light is so good. What the Municipality does have, though, is some really straight roads; apart from a little squiggle out by the City cemetery, it was arrow straight highways all the way, which for Johnny Foreigner (me!) is still quite entertaining.
Rondeau Park was nice in the evening light. Our site was flat, well screened and only a short hobble from the 'Comfort Station' - toilet and shower block to the non-euphemised. Before backing in, I remembered to remove the anti-sway bars from the hitch system, something that's not vital when going backwards but gives a slightly better turn radius. The people who set these parks up seem to delight in putting trees in the most inconvenient places so on this occasion my mighty, single sweep into the space allotted was brought to a premature end by a spindly little bugger on my left, so I had to readjust said mighty sweep and consequently bolloxed up the approach. Still, I'll know how to do it next time.
Dog walking and snooping were dispensed with before settling into baked potatoes and good old ENGLISH Heinz baked beans in the bowels of Towed Haul. It was gearing up to be a cold night but, and I have to mention this, there was no rain despite the awning being deployed - I thought perhaps we'd shifted that particular monkey from our backs but the remainder of the weekend proved me horribly wrong.
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| Ah, supper. |
Saturday started fine and cold so the hound and I headed off to check out the caravan competition. No Airstreams, hardly any tents and quite a lot of mobile blocks of flats, otherwise known as Fifth Wheelers. We did see, at a distance, another Greyhound (dog, not bus) but other than that and a freshening wind, all was benign and peaceful. Later, we took the hound to the beach for a three-pee run around and followed that with a trip over to Ridgetown to raid the baker's. Actually, we went to Ridgetown first I think, but such is the slow and satisfying pace of life whilst glamping that minor details like time are lost. Either way, Willow was delirious at having the freedom of the beach and we were similarly delirious with our sausage rolls, cheese and ham rolls and our cakes. We're simple people who get pleasure from simple things, as you can see.
We've sort of nailed the water supply and waste in Towed Haul when we're not hooked up to either water or sewer mains. On arrival at the campground, we dump both the waste tanks, even though they only have the waste from my cleaning regime in them; that way we start properly empty. Then we fill the fresh water tank with around fifty US gallons, which sees us through the weekend usually. We could fill up at home but fifty gallons of water weighs nearly 420 lbs and you don't need to be towing that around unless you really need to. We don't drink that water but we do use it for everything else, including the shower and the toilet. The waste tanks, Black for toilet waste and Grey for everything else, fill up gradually although because Mrs T prefers not to use the Comfort Station, the Grey tends to fill faster than the black with the shower use. So, with a plan born out of experience, we decided to even things out a bit and started to dump used washing up water into the toilet, something that really works for us. Not only do the tanks fill more evenly but a load of soapy water in the Black tank helps work on its solids content, aiding the dump out at the end of the trip and keeping the tank free of obstructions. I'm sure others do this but I've not seen it written elsewhere so I think we'll claim this a Toad Tip.
Talking of water, the rain started up in the afternoon whilst we were sitting out under the awning. It started and didn't bloody stop! It's not so bad being outside under said awning in the rain as it's an effective cover, but the noise was getting a bit much. We retired inside and stayed there, only surfacing to go and get the dog soaked at bedtime, which was fun. I also hauled in the awning in the evening because the wind was up, but the rain kept up all night. Tsk.
Saturday supper was a shop bought Quiche Florentine and a pack of tiny potatoes. I only mention this because in boiling the spuds we used another Toad Tip - cook 'em outside! We have a small electric "ring" that we can plug into the outlet on the outside of Towed Haul. Once boiling, the water generates a lot of steam and keeping it outside is a good thing. We also use the Park's electricity, which we've paid for, rather than our own propane. Hey, that's two Toad Tips!
So, Sunday morning was a bit better, at least not raining. I pulled out the awning again so that it could dry off a bit, then squelched around the campground with the Hound. We did meet the other Greyhound, Jojo, who had Willow jumping backwards in a single leap of about ten feet. Willow is a little highly strung but she took exception to Jojo barking just when she was getting close. Ours is not a brave Greyhound.
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| Not a brave greyhound |
Whilst on our walk, I had to deposit some rubbish into the skip near the front entrance. I don't know what made me look but as I lifted the lift I saw a raccoon scuttling around in there. The skip was all but empty and I have no idea how the little fellow gained access, but there was no way he was getting out without some help. As ever, I didn't have my camera so I have no evidence of the furry felon, but I had a good look at him and he didn't look too concerned - perhaps this is something that happens to raccoons a lot; he certainly wasn't going to starve in there. I walked the hound up to the Park Office to report the incident but there was no one about so I made a mental note to let the rangers know about it when we were leaving.
All too soon it was hitching time again and we were heading out of the park. We'd watched our neighbours trying to get the hitch to marry with the trailer but they were struggling a bit. The wife just stood and watched whilst the husband moved his truck an inch, struggled out to look and then had to get back in to move it another inch and this happened quite a few times. I'm not sure why wifey wasn't communicating, perhaps they'd had a hitching row at some point? Sometimes, these men are so macho that they don't want any help, especially from wifey, so maybe that was his game. They hitched eventually and were off before us but I have to say when that Mrs Toad ably assisted me to get our tow ball positioned correctly on the second pass, I felt truly smug; communication is everything!
We'd used pretty much all our water, had satisfyingly full waste tanks and kept Towed Haul in good shape all weekend - maybe we're getting the hang of it at last?
One more trip this season and that will be next weekend, on the same plot at the same campsite. Firestarter William will be in charge of the cooking so we're hoping that we don't end up with another gold plated pizza from Ridgetown. Happy camping, peeps.
