Let the camping begin!

Not long after towing the Argosy home from Canada, we put it to good use.

First trip was Labor Day weekend. We spent three nights in Vermont at a lovely private campground at Harvey's Lake Campground in West Barnet. Despite our normal habit of changing campsites on arrival, we lucked out this time, with a lovely site on the banks of a creek.

We went to Vermont to mountain bike the Kingdom Trails network in East Burke. I've mountain biked in some fabulous places (Grand Canyon, Oregon), but this is the best network of trails I've ridden. They're relatively smooth - a rare thing in rock-laden New England - well marked, and a whoop-de-do roller coaster blast to ride. It doesn't hurt that there is a fine Saturday morning farmer's market in St. Johnsbury on the way.

Towing the Minuet is pretty easy. Handling-wise, you barely notice it behind the minivan. You do notice it on hills, of which there are many in Vermont. The Odyssey pulls it fine, but mileage suffered, hovering around 13-14 mpg.

Living in the Argosy is quite a step up from the T@B. It is luxury to have amenities like a toilet, hot water (I do love hot water, especially not having to boil it on the stove for dishes), two comfy beds, lots of overhead lighting, a big refrigerator with a freezer (that boggles the mind), and tons of storage.

Maybe the ultimate expression of trailer living luxury was after we biked Monday morning. We were dirty and stinky, with a five hour drive home. But the trailer was attached behind the van in the overflow parking lot. We fired up the hot water heater, took a shower, and freshened up for the drive back. Lovely.

The only issue: the fan switch for the stove vent gets hot to the touch, and the fan cuts out intermittently. I even managed our first dump station visit successfully! Good times.

(OK, that wasn't all. We didn't latch the wardrobe door well enough, so we saw that swinging open and shut as we drove. We pulled over to shut that, since it was blocking the view straight through out the rear trailer window. Good thing we did - the frig had opened up. We took the heavy stuff out of the door (duh) and rejiggered the bungee cord that holds the frig shut. Classic RV newbie mistakes, although we avoided all of those with the T@B...)