Well I just finished my 1st shakedown trip in my van. Even before this little trip I was trying to work through the bugs. For instance my freezer was warm vs frosty, discovered the settings were in Celsius not Fahrenheit. What a huge difference that makes.

So off to escape with my Rosie girl. Introducing her to life in the van was interesting. She loves that I go out with her to explore our surroundings under the pretense that she will pee and poo. I called this P&P’s, although she doesn’t get my humor in calling it that. Guess I’ve been on the SKP Board too long. I don’t demand standing rules, bylaws or P&P’s on her, but the interchange happens fairly often and she just stares at me. I do better with sit, down, fetch, ride, walk and leash when talking to her. And so life goes on.

I picked a campground between Sequim and Port Angeles. I had need to go to both places so tried to do it this weekend. I only managed to get one of tofwo things done – Costco was done and getting seen at Music Mobile was not. So the first day/night I camped off electricity. I really wanted to see what I could do without electricity and with solar. Of course the skies opened up and it rained, but I still got a good idea. I did not do anything huge amount of cooking, but I had come prepared to just eat what I picked up at Costco for dinner. Rosie, got (new to her) Sunday’s beef for dinner. Her Nom Nom was still frozen. Well she rather looked at Sunday’s offerings and walked away, so I added freeze-dried beef, just a few to Sunday’s food. She cobbled it all down. We walked after dinner, as the rain had let up. Met a few of our neighbors, she got lots of attention and she loved it. Met a few big dogs which made Rosie run between my legs for protection, whereas the big dogs just wanted to play. She did not allow it, so we moved on. When we got back to the van, Rosie played a bit, while I attempted to check my emails. Still having trouble making my iPhone a hotspot. I do all the steps on phone as well as computer – the phone picks up the computer but not vice versa. I will figure it out, but it’s eluding me at the moment. We turned in early.

A rather rude discovery the next morning, to learn my 12 v Norcold fridge is not working. It was before the trip, did something dislodge on the road? I don’t know, but it’s not working. So I hooked up to electricity. Switched on the inverter, wa-la – my fridge is now working. I don’t get it, why doesn’t it work on 12v? Sure it’s raining outside, but everything else is working. So guess I will stay hooked to electricity until I head back home.

So the rest of the weekend it rained, of course. So I had brought stuff to pack and find a home for, I did that. Played with Rosie, walked Rosie – never did find the dog run they claimed they had, I would have loved to let her run, but not this time. Oddly, she seemed content as long as I was walking with her. When we got home, I attempted to just let her out on the front porch to do her P&P’s to no avail. She brought her leash to me – a first! So we both got drenched in our walk. Rosie is anxious when in a moving vehicle. Despite all the baby steps to get her past this, I think I may have to resort to drugs. She just non-stop pants. Yeah, I know dogs pant, that is normal, but this is different. She stops panting as soon as the vehicle stops and picks right back up when we are moving. She is a whole lot better in the van than she was in my car, as she watches out the windows, but think she is more distracted. Really wish she was better. Her trainer thinks she will improve.Keep your fingers crossed, let’s hope she does.

Now I need to master the storing of stuff in my van. I realized on this weekend, I need a location for trash, dirty clothes, but also the stuff for my nightly goodies. There is no room for extras – which is a super challenging for this person who always had a backup – whether it was a water pump, extra hoses, extra filters. I am also eliminating a few appliances to make more room. I decided I’m not taking my food processor & all its parts – I will have to mash my beans for hummus by hand or using a potato masher. Not sure what else I will eliminate, but I’m striving to make this my best pack yet