Baptism of fire in Amarillo

T6 CFO · Mar 8, 2017

Verity said:
Such fun! I think you are very brave tackling three days with all those bodies on a stormy weekend a long way from home for your first outing. Your au pair sounds like a complete star - I never liked sharing a bed with my own child, let alone anyone else's!!! She's a keeper for sure!

Re: mud. We have cotton rugs in the van which can come out and go in the washing machine. By the end of a muddy weekend they look a bit manky, but it's so easy to clean the van up once they are taken out. I also have a blanket over the seats (a) because the seats are very boring and grey and I am a girly girl and (b) like the rugs, the blanket can just go in the wash when I get home if necessary.

The awning thing sounds interesting. Our awning arrives tomorrow, and is not a super one like yours - we opted for an el cheapo teeny tiny Khyam as it won't actually get used much, so it'll be fun to see how we get on with it.

Sat nav: it takes a bit of getting used to. To enter postcode you need to click on the city and then it has some initials (something like ptd - can't remember exactly) in the bottom left corner. That foxed us for several weeks! One thing I've learnt over the years of driving around with my husband is that it's always a good idea to take a good map book with you as well. When there are unexpected hold ups/cock ups/roadworks, sat navs seem to go a bit spanner and without a paper map you can go a long way out of your way for not much benefit. I may be a luddite, but you really can't beat a good old fashioned map. Sat nav is great for most journeys though.

Once you've done a few more trips out, setting up and packing away will work like clockwork. Think of a couple of little jobs the boys can help with - when our little one (now a big 17 yr old) was small and we had a caravan, he always liked to be part of the 'crew', which was lovely and, despite the fact that it would probably have been easier to leave him sitting in the car with his DS (!), we always assigned him some things to do when we were setting up our caravan. As he got bigger, he got more useful. Sadly, he thinks the Cali is uncool and much prefers to stay at home at weekends now and let his aged parents bumble around on their own.

You're going to have so much fun!

Blankets are definitely a good plan. Far easier for us with just two adults but a blanket on the back seat where we sit when eating in the van is a must and brightens things up.
Won't be long Verity until the 17 year old thinks it's cool again and will be looking to borrow it.

Mike

Verity · Mar 8, 2017

T6 CFO said:
Blankets are definitely a good plan. Far easier for us with just two adults but a blanket on the back seat where we sit when eating in the van is a must and brightens things up.
Won't be long Verity until the 17 year old thinks it's cool again and will be looking to borrow it.

Mike

I know. He'll be begging me to borrow it. I might let him. I might not ... !

tritone30 · Mar 17, 2017

Amarillo said:
Here is the gap:
View attachment 19614
Somehow it doesn't look so bad in that photo, but the awning does look very saggy.

Great picture, but how does the tent attach to the van with the awning in the way?

MattBW · Mar 17, 2017

tritone30 said:
Great picture, but how does the tent attach to the van with the awning in the way?

My awning (Fiamma) has a slot for the kador strip, does the Thule one have the same?

Amarillo · Mar 17, 2017

tritone30 said:
Great picture, but how does the tent attach to the van with the awning in the way?

It attaches to the awning. [Awning in this case refers to the van's wind out awning; tent refers to the driveaway awning]

wind out the awning a few inches
attach the tent to the awning, either directly or via a kador strip and figure of eight
wind the awning back in
peg out the tent

One of the mistakes I made was reversing steps 3 and 4.

If you don't have an awning you can attach the tent directly to the van, either directly or with a kador strip and figure of eight.

As a second alternative, you can attach the tent to a fully or partially wound out awning.

As a third alternative, you can fully wind out the awning and attach the tent to the other side of the van.

tritone30 · Mar 17, 2017

Thanks for that, it is all very clear now.

GillianC · Mar 17, 2017

Verity said:
I know. He'll be begging me to borrow it. I might let him. I might not ... !

My 6ft 4inch 22 year old thinks the Cali is very cool. He has plans for it!!! Uh oh.

Bramco · Mar 17, 2017

GillianC said:
My 6ft 4inch 22 year old thinks the Cali is very cool. He has plans for it!!! Uh oh.

We've got a 32 year old version of one of those. Little does he know that the Cali course will cost him 2 days of his long weekend in June before he's certified.