Practice Trip Cancelled

Practice makes perfect.  Or as my choir conductor always says, practice makes permanent.  Either way, my husband and I recognize the importance of practicing before our big trip.  We’re jumping right in, bringing little to no RV experience to this grand adventure.  Our mild weather makes camping in winter possible so we’re doing what we can to rectify that problem.  The practice schedule is set for O’Neill Park in February, Idyllwild in March, and Big Bear in April.  Each campground offering a slightly different set of circumstances.  No hookups, winding roads, and a mountainous environment.

We’ve been busy provisioning the trailer since our maiden voyage, all with the mindset of a long haul.  A crappy mattress for a couple nights stay might be okay, but not for days on end.  Laundry is done on the road and not at home after our return.  Some supplies are cheaper to buy here and bring along than to buy in remote towns along the Alaska Highway.  Shampoo, toilet paper, laundry soap.  Some items, like all those supplements we take to stay young and healthy, might not even be able enroute.  A road trip kitchen is provisioned differently than the kitchen at home.  It’s bare bones with every item serving multiple purposes.  And how do you store it all given limited space and the knowledge that items will shift while driving.

The summer weather in Canada and Alaska is comparable to our winter weather.  We could have a heat wave.  One caught us quite by surprise many years ago on an Alaskan cruise.  But more than likely it’ll be cool and a little rainy.  So camping at home in the winter gives us a good idea of the bedding we need to keep us warm at night and the layers of clothes required to keep us warm during the day.

February’s trip was the perfect opportunity to try out what we learned from and acquired since our maiden voyage.  Except that California is having an unusually harsh winter.  Record level rain.  Record low elevation levels for snow.  Just plain cold.  The worst storm of the season occurred on the first day of February’s practice trip.  The campground is less than 1 ½ miles from Trabuco Creek which flooded and washed out a bridge causing evacuations and road closures.  Hiking trails were closed.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, we cancelled February’s practice trip.  Aside from the danger, the idea of being confined in a small space with our warm dry home less than 30 minutes away just wasn’t appealing .  Yeah, yeah, yeah we might have rain like this on our trip.  But flooding is not likely since the area is used to rain.  And we wouldn’t necessarily be confined to the trailer.  The newness of the area would activate our sense of adventure.  We’d take the truck and explore, happily grinning and bearing the inclement weather.

So instead of camping, we went on one of the dry days to visit our trailer to see how it was holding up with all the rain and to deliver, and in some cases install, items accumulated since the maiden voyage.  Our new mattress, wheel covers, storage solutions, kitchen items, RV friendly cleaning supplies.

Here’s the thing.  At this rate we could encounter snow for practice trips 3 and 4, both locations being in the mountains.  The snow level of our next storm is expected to drop to 1500 feet and the elevation of March’s campground is about 6000 feet and March is only a few weeks away.  It all depends on how long and drawn out this unexpectedly harsh winter will be.  So while I wait for March’s trip to arrive I will practice the power of positive thinking.