Maiden voyage of the Good Coach Molly B.

Well, it was the maiden voyage for us anyway. We took a three day shake down trip to Paris Mountain State Park near Greenville, SC. And yes, we've christened the rig Molly B. in remembrance of an old pet of ours.

The trip was only about forty miles from home, just in case something went wrong. We don't have a toad yet, so we were park-bound once we set up.

We made our reservations over the phone, so we didn't know exactly what the site would look like, other than the length of the pad. Unfortunately it turned out to be quite narrow, with a slight drop-off where we should have been able to set up our outdoor sitting area, so we pretty much just stayed in the coach for the three days. It wasn't a pull through site, and had trees pretty close to the pad, so I got to practice backing in with Kate's guidance - something we hadn't talked over prior to arrival so we had a few tense moments as we worked out hand signals and such.

That was fine because we needed to determine if all of us, Kate, me, two dogs and a cat, could survive close quarters for an extended time. And it worked out great. We were quite comfortable. The pets enjoyed being able to look out the windows and watch neighbors come and go. We discovered that we had all the room we really need, and have plenty of storage space for everything we need (so far) to be able to go full time.

We made a relatively extensive list of things we forgot to bring, most notably a cork screw. I opened two wine bottles with my pocket knife. The first one was successful. The second, not so much. While twisting the knife to remove the cork, the neck broke off the bottle, so we had to strain the wine through a paper towel prior to consuming it. No big deal in  the big scheme of things.

Of course it was raining when we had to break camp, so I was glad we hadn't opened the awning. Next was the stop at the sanitary dump station. This was the first time I'd used one of these and I was a little nervous. The drizzling rain didn't help me either. I dumped black water and then the grey, just as instructed. However, after I'd finished, I checked the level indicators inside, and the black water tank was still showing full. By this time I'd already put everything away, so I figure I'll stop over at Camping World soon and complete the job. I'm guessing that the black tank has two problems - blockage, and fouled sensors, so I'm planning on the bag of ice and possibly a wand treatment. We'll see...