The first trick was finding the campground. We had tried to find the campground by following the signs before but those had lead us into the training area and after a few miles we decided it couldn't be out that way. Now that we were planning to stay there we plugged the GPS coordinates into our Garmin and let that lead the way. Once again we were in training areas with signs that said things like "restricted access" and "live range ahead" but this time we just kept going. Sure enough nestled deep in the woods and training grounds of Fort Gordon we came across Leitner Lake campground. (We live on Fort Gordon and Meric works on Fort Gordon but it still takes him 25+ minutes to get to work. Crazy!)
Leitner Lake is a first come first serve type of place with only 22 campsites. Luckily there was one open and we were able to move right in. It is a nice campground right on a lake. The facilities are nice and they even offer 2 washers and 2 dryers to use for free. At only $350 a month for everything it is a great place to stay for a while. The only catch is that after you stay for 60 days you HAVE to move out of the campground for one week before you can move back. And once again it is first come first serve so you might not be able to get back on after your week if the campground is full.
Well our 60 days were up and we had to move. Across the lake is a rural camp area and for $5 a night you are welcome to stay there as long as you want. But rural means no water, no sewer and no electricity. Meric and I felt like we were up for the challenge and excited to try out dry camping a.k.a. boondocking in our trailer.
Our 5th wheel is equipped with a 100 gallon fresh water tank. We filled the tank up and made sure our water pump was working well so that we wouldn't be completely without water. Also all of our sinks, shower and toilet drain into holding tanks under our trailer. As long as we didn't go crazy with the water we were good to go on water for at least a week.
Our trailer also uses different sources of energy. We use a 12 volt D/C battery to; power our lights, run circuit boards in our furnace and fridge, move our sides in and out, and a few other things. 120V AC is used to power our microwave, air conditioners, the power inverter (which helps keep the battery charged) and anything else you want to plug in to use. Propane is used for the oven and we can also use it to run the fridge and water heater which we normally run from AC power. Being the redneck hippies we are, Meric and I decided to experiment with solar panels. We got a small one to charge our cell phones. We figure this solar panel will come in handy for when we go camping and backpacking too. We also got a slightly larger solar panel to help keep our trailer battery charged.
Our trailer has a built in gasoline generator also. It is nice to have in case of emergency but we have never had a need to run it since we were always plugged in at a campground. With our solar panels we wanted to see if we could handle the week without having to use the generator.
With everything packed up, tanks filled and solar panels ready to go, we moved the trailer to the rural area to begin our week. With the exception of having no cell phone reception at all, the rural area is really quite nice. It is way less busy and we had a bigger area all to ourselves. We were able to have the dogs out and loose most of the time. (one family did come to tent camp while we were there but they came over to meet our dogs and the kids loved playing with the dogs.) With the weather being warm we spent most of the time outside in the shade and cool breeze. It was so quiet and relaxing without tv and phones to distract us. I had planned most of our meals to use the grill and dutch ovens outside. It felt like for the first time we were really camping in our trailer.
The first couple of days were sunny and bright and we were able to easily keep the solar panel in the sun and the battery stayed charged. The third day was much more cloudy and the battery started to die. To conserve energy we would use flashlights and not the lights but the battery was slowly dying and even though the fridge was being powered by propane the circuit panel needed the battery in order for it to work. By the fourth day we were barely able to keep enough energy going from the solar panel to the battery to keep the fridge working. (Really we needed more solar panels.) After needing the truck to help charge the battery and with the temperatures outside reaching over 90 degrees these redneck hippies were ready to give the generator a try,
I was a little nervous starting the generator. We had never used it but we have had a couple of problems with it. The transfer switch it came with had actually been recalled because it would catch fire. Living in the trailer we had never had the chance to take it in to be replaced. At one point I had smelt an electrical burning smell and even though we had never used it the burning smell was the transfer switch heating up and melting. Meric and his dad (during one of his visits) had rewired the trailer and taken out the transfer switch. Now there is an actual plug that you physically plug into the generator from the trailer when you want to switch to using the generator. I was pretty sure that if the generator turned on at all it would catch fire. But instead it started right up and ran great. We were able to get the battery charged up, run both our air conditioning units and other things with the generator running. I was pleasantly impressed with our generator.
With the help of water tanks, solar panels, the generator and a cool breeze we were able to survive "roughing it" for a week. When our week was up we were able to move back to the regular campground into a new empty spot. (The only available site was a tight fit for our 40ft trailer. Luckily after squeezing into that site for a night we were able to move to another, much longer site that had opened up the next day.)
It was definitely a learning experience to dry camp. After trying out a few options Meric and I are a lot more confident for when our 60 days are up again.
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