Buying items for the Travel Trailer

We've spent the rest of this month making a list of things that we need for the travel trailer. I found a microfiber sofa protector and one for the loveseat in burgundy and ordered them from Bed Bath & Beyond - they weren't available at our store. We wanted to add some touches of color since the cabinets and wood are a dark brown and the sofa and love seat are dark brown, too. 

After doing some research on light-weight vacuums, I bought a Shark Rocket Ultra-Light Stick Vacuum at our Bed Bath & Beyond store. It comes apart and is easy to stow in one of the cabinets. We're also looking for a small area rug to put down on the floor when the slide is out. The area we want for the rug isn't a standard size for area rugs, so it might be a while before we find something to fit.

The Friday after we got home from Silver Springs State Park, Mike and I went to the MOAA (Military Officers of America Assn.) luncheon at the Vero Beach Yacht Club. We had the Chopped Steak with potatoes for lunch. The speaker was Tom Doyle a former Special Agent with the Secret Service. He gave

Heading home from Silver Springs State Park

Last night was the second night we slept in the Sonic and this time it was at an actual campground and not the dealership's lot.

We're both pleased with how we slept on the memory foam mattress since we've heard that a lot of RV mattresses are uncomfortable. We had had a Sleep Number bed in our motor-home and that was great, so we wondered how comfortable the mattress in the Sonic would be.

We made coffee and sat outside just enjoying being back camping again.Tinker liked checking out the new smells in the area. 

We usually take photos of all of the campsites we stay at and Mike took some this morning.

 Then after another cup of coffee we started breaking camp. Check-out isn't until 1:00, but we wanted to take our time this morning - we had our routine for breaking camp with our motor-home and this a little different from that. For one thing, it's not as large so there is less for me to do on the inside to get things stowed away for travel. Mike's stuff he has to do on the outside is basically the same as with the motor-home. 

We stopped at the dump station on the way out of the campground and dumped our black and gray water tanks. So we were on the road by 11:20 and we headed east on FL-40 over to I-95 near Ormond Beach and then south on I-95 to Sebastian. We arrived home a little before 3:00 from our 177 mile trip from Silver Springs State Park.

Something that is new for us, is having to unload food and stuff from the trailer to bring back into the house. With our motor-home that was our house, so everything stayed inside. 

We're looking forward to going to some of the Florida State Park campgrounds.

Our First Night Camping in our New RV at the Dealership

For spending our first night in the travel trailer and on a new bed, we slept pretty good. We were up early this morning and had had our coffee by the time the techs arrived. 

After some checking to find out why our trailer brakes locked up yesterday, it was a short in the wiring to the electric brakes. So once they found that out and made the repairs, we were finally on our way to Silver Springs State Park. Mike talked with the sales manager and 
explained that we had had a reservation for last night at the campground and they reimbursed us for one night's fee. 

It was lunchtime when we left the dealership and came over to the state park. After checking in and driving to our campsite, I fixed lunch while Mike was hooking up to the electric and water connections. Then we leveled the trailer and disconnected the car. 

We are in site #43 which is a pull-through and it is pretty level. Once we had everything setup, we just relaxed for the rest of the day. I had bought some steaks and potatoes for dinner and of course, some wine. 

Our son Fletcher called us tonight to see how we were doing and we told him how the last couple of days had been. We told him that we were pleased with the trailer and that we felt we had chosen the right one for us.

We're not sure how Tinker feels about it, though. He likes checking out the campground with all of the new smells, but I'm not sure what he thinks about the smaller RV.

I had set up our new TV and connected it to the local stations antenna, so we pulled in some channels and are watching TV.

With all that went on yesterday, I didn't go over what the inside of the trailer is like. We have a slide-out

Picked up New Travel Trailer & Our First Night in it

We had had an appointment for last Friday at 1:00 at Optimum RV to do our pre-delivery walk-through of the Sonic travel trailer we bought last week. But we got a call Friday morning that some of the techs had called to say they weren't going to be at work that day, so our delivery date was postponed to Monday. 

We left the house this morning around 8:00 and drove up to the dealership in Ocala. We brought Tinker along with us this trip because we were going to go to Silver Springs State Park for a couple of nights camping after we got the travel trailer. We stopped for gas in Belleview at Raceway and paid $2.859 a gallon for premium - the manual for the Honda Pilot says to use premium grade gas instead of regular whenever you're towing anything.

In planning ahead for our stay at the campground at Silver Springs State Park, I had brought a cooler with food that we were going to eat while we were at the campground.

We had the tow bar and sway bars installed

and the brake controller installed.

The techs also removed the exhaust fan in the bathroom and installed the Fantastic Fan Vent in its place. 

Then there was a problem regarding the wiring of the brake controller. The Pilot was already wired for the connections, but the tech didn't realize that it was pre-wired and was going to run a whole new set of wiring to the front of the Pilot. Another tech knew the Pilot was already wired for the brake controller and said that we only needed an adapter to go from 4 wires to 7 wires, so he pulled out the wiring the other tech had installed. Then they had to go to a parts store to get the adapter and that took a while.

So after a long day at the dealership, Mike, Tinker and I were finally headed over to Silver Springs State Park at 7:00. The park closes at sunset and today that was going to be a little before 8:00, so we had plenty of time to get there before the gates were closed.

However - we had just pulled out of the dealership lot onto US-301 and hadn't driven no more than a mile

Travel Trailer Shopping & Buying

Last Sunday we drove over to Kissimmee to visit with my sister-in-law Elaine since we hadn't been over there for a while. Before heading back home, we drove out to Camping World at to look at their RVs. We didn't see any that travel trailers there that we liked. On the way home we stopped at the Dairy Queen at the I-95 Sebastian exit and bought a couple of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Blizzards for supper.

Last Thursday we drove up to Ocala (169 miles) to Optimum RV to look at the Sonic Travel Trailers by Venture RV. Since it would be lunch time when we got to the dealership, we stopped in Belleview at Zaxby's to have lunch and had their chicken fingers basket with fries. 

We got to Optimum RV about noon and told Stephen that we were interested in the Sonic Travel Trailers. We told him we wanted to look at the 2017 200VML model. Stephen took us out on the lot and we looked at some of the models they had there. 

Mike had come across the Sonic trailers when he was looking on the internet for something that would meet our criteria for travel and comfort. We had both looked at several floor-plans for the Sonic and had

Goodbye 2016 Subaru Outback, Hello 2015 Honda Pilot

We have had some major changes just in the last week! I've been writing about our search for a travel trailer or pop-up that our Subaru Outback could tow with its 200 lb. hitch weight limit. So our choice was to either get a different vehicle that had a higher hitch weight limit, or settle for a really small travel trailer or pop-up and the ones we saw really didn't appeal to us.

So -- Mike found a used 2015 Honda Pilot with slightly less than 15,000 miles on it at the Daytona Toyota dealer. We drove up to Daytona to take a look at the Pilot on the 6th and took it for a test drive. We decided to trade in our 2016 Outback for the Pilot. The Outback had the Eyesight Driver Assist, Lane Assist to keep you in your lane, Pre-Collision braking and blind spot warnings in the side mirrors. The 2015 Pilot has none of that, but does have the navigation system, plus the hitch weight on it is 450 lbs. It's a trade-off between the technology of one car vs. the towing capacity of the other car - towing capacity won out!

After much searching on the internet, Mike has found a possible travel trailer that would fit our needs for travel and comfort. It's at a dealer in Ocala and we will drive up there next week to look at the models.

The Honda Pilot is taller and larger than the Outback, so Mike is looking on the internet for some running boards for the Pilot so it is easier for me to get in and out of the Pilot. The Pilot also has leather seats and Mike is ordering some seat covers for the front seats.