I am delighted to report that the Sagwagon has been on her maiden voyage and it was a huge success. The teardrop is everything we had hoped and my only regret is that I didn't know about them years ago. We have both been wanting to go to the Wooden Boat Show at the Mystic Seaport for years. Since it was scheduled to occur shortly after the completion of the Sagwagon it seemed like the perfect destination for our first trip.
Enough duffel bags to hold everything we needed for a long weekend (or longer) fit very neatly on the shelf in the cabin. We could have fit in one more bag with no problem. The fan was wedged in between the bags to keep it secure in transit. The small cabinets held little things like ditty bags, Kindle, First Aid kit and other necessities and there was a LOT of room left. We hung rip stop fabric bags on the hooks next to the shelf to hold our shoes at night. That worked out very well and shoes were always clean dry and handy when we needed them. The super simple electrical worked well and the fan kept the cabin very comfortable at night. (I was glad I remembered my 30 amp adapter from WalMart. We would have been heck out of luck without it!!)
The galley was adequate for everything we needed, which we just organized in simple plastic bins. The extention table rode on the counter top with some non skid shelf liner underneath it. The little box with the paper towels has a pole in the middle for the towels and spice and condiment containers fit around the towels. I saw one at a seafood restaurant and just had to build one. It has little rubber non skid pads on the bottom. It didn't move an inch during the trip.
Like a proud mama.
We did make the mistake of following the GPS straight up the I-95 which put us in rush hour traffic outside NYC. Not fun. What should have been a 5 hour trip turned into a 10 hour trip by the time it was all said and done.
We stayed in East Lyme, CT at the Aces High RV Park. A little more pricey than the average state park (they give a 10% discount to Good Sam members), but compared to what we used to pay for hotel rooms it was a downright bargain. We had a lovely site right next to a running brook. It was very pleasant. The bath facilities were clean, there is electric, water, (and sewer at every site except ours), fire rings, a pool, dump station, small campstore, and a very nice staff (especially Felix the maintenance man, who took pics of the tear and sent them to his wife, possibly a future teardrop owner???). The drive to the Seaport took around 15 minutes. I would definitely stay there again.
Due to our traffic issues, we arrived quite late and it started getting dark soon after we pulled in. We were racing the quickly approaching darkness, had gear all over the ground, Lance was putting chemicals and water in the porta potty, the teardrop was still locked up and I had no idea where my keys were at the moment when our first visitors showed up wanting to see the teardrop!! As bad as I felt about it, I politely declined and told them I would be more than happy to show them around after we got unlocked and organized a bit. By the time that happened it was much too dark for anyone to see anything anyway.
Saturday morning we were only up and out for a few minutes when three more people showed up wanting to look around and take pictures. I was still in my pajamas. (My advice to newbies....get dressed and make your bed right away, just in case.) Holy cow. I wasn't quite prepared for THIS much attention. In all we gave 4 tours while at the campground. Everyone there was super nice.
Our first camp breakfast, home fries, homemade Goetta, eggs and coffee.
A truly "happy camper."
After breakfast we headed into Mystic for the boat show. It was everything we had imagined and so much more. Mystic itself is just lovely, the harbor was postcard perfect, and I have never seen so many drop-dead gorgeous boats in one place in my life. I was absolutely wide-eyed and crazed all day long, trying so hard to see everything. (Impossible to do in one day. I wish we had planned to be there the whole three days of the show.)
Lance is in his glory whenever boats are involved.
This one was my favorite.
Saturday night we were exhausted from a long day of walking so dinner was steaks cooked over the camp fire. So relaxing.
Sunday we took a different route home. We went a long, long way out of our way to avoid coming anywhere near New York City. It took 8 hours instead of 10. (I'm still wondering where the 5 hour route is that MapQuest kept telling us about.....) We will definitely save trips of this distance for when we have at least 5 days. We had planned to meet up with Dean in CT and KCStudly, but due to the expectedly long travel times did not get the opportunity to do so.
The teardrop towed like a dream. Lance kept track of the gas mileage and our mpg only dropped by one mile to the gallon towing the tear. I'm really happy we took this short trip prior to our 10 day trip to KY and the CRA on the 20th. It gave me a little opportunity to evaluate things and figure out what I need to add, subtract or change.
Things I will change:
The extension table is being moved from the galley to the outside of the teardrop. (I have already started this.) I found I was not comfortable leaving my hatch open at night for fear the food might attract critters, which meant the table had to be removed every night in order to put the hatch down, and if I wanted to store it on the counter everything had to be cleared off and packed away. Very inconvenient. Even though I have been resistant to the idea of mounting things on the outside of the tear, in the end form needs to follow function.
I will leave one of the Coleman lanterns at home and use its storage space for the Coleman 502 single burner stove. We found we barely used the lantern as they are too bright and are a huge bug draw. The light of the campfire and the yellow light on the electrical pedestal was enough once we were familiar with our surroundings. We will bring some Citronella candles on the next trip and they can provide additional outside light. We figured out the first night it's best to leave the light off inside the trailer until after you're inside too. We were catching and throwing out beetles for an hour that had been attracted by the light and were waiting by the door to fly in the minute we opened it.
I need to install a couple of drink holders near the head of the bed so we can keep bottles of water handy during the night.
We wished we had brought an axe to chop up some of the dry wood we foraged for the campfire. There is one in our tonguebox now.
Our Rubbermaid cooler that fits my sliding drawer doesn't hold ice for crap. It seemed like every time we turned around we were throwing in another bag of ice. We will be using our Frigid Rigid in the future, which will hold ice for a solid week but will not fit in the teardrop. I will use the sliding drawer for a plastic bin(s) to hold dry foods and the cooler will ride in the truck.
And I packed way too many refrigerated foods in the first place. In the future I will bring the dry staples from home and shop for fresh meats, veggies, milk and such along the way.
The Coleman camping cookset is crap. The bottom of the pan scorched and the nonstick started scratching off with the first use, even though I used plastic utensils. It's being replaced by quality pots and pans. If they take up more room, so be it, another bin in the truck. I broke down and bought a Lodge 12" cast iron skillet today. (Debbie, Nevadatear, I'll be needing that recipe for pork chops and apples.)
Our Terminix man gave us an electric Mosquito Sentry which was supposed to repel and kill mosquitos in the campsite. It holds a liquid and I think it was supposed to be vaporized into the air. As far as I can tell all it did was leak all the liquid onto the ground and all over our stuff. Thank God it was a freebie. If you are ever offered the opportunity to part with $100 for one of these gizmos, don't. We'll use Citronella candles in the future.
We had purchased as Texsport Hilo Hut to use as a porta potty tent. What a mess that was. We returned it an bought the Cabela's Trekker pop up privy tent and we love it. Easy and fast to put up and take down, it is very roomy, and has a nice floor that detaches for easy cleaning. I had to watch the video and practice closing it up twice but after that it was a piece of cake and I recommend it highly.
Lance installed a tonneau cover and tailgate lock on the truck this week, which is good because the amount of gear that will be riding in the truck seems to increase by the day. Next thing is to get a better receiver tube welded on the back of the teardrop for our bike racks as we have decided against putting racks on the truck. In 18 days we are off again!!
