Anyway, the trip was planned to go to a NH State Park. John had been there for a couple of days and was there to greet me and guide me into my camping spot. Remember I have never backed up with a trailer. We gave it a few attempts, but the short wheel base of my Tucson, combined with the very short Scamp made it nearly impossible. The slightest turn of the steering wheel made the Scamp swivel as if on a pivot. Soon I started smelling burning clutch ( My Tucson has a manual transmission), so we stopped the lesson and I pulled in to the site rather than backing in, and used the trailer dolly to position the Scamp.
At the campground besides water there are no hook ups. John has a quiet Honda Generator, which was great because I still don't have a functioning 12 volt system. We ran a cord from his generator to my Scamp. This at least gave me interior lights.
Things I learned right away:
1. It gets cold in the mountains in early October.
2. An electric heater could have made life more bearable.
The temperatures dropped to below freezing by bedtime. I had a small Propane two burner camp stove, so I thought I would crack a window and heat up the Scamp before bed. This did in fact work, but the camper quickly lost most of the heat and sleeping was difficult even with a heavy sleeping bag. Every time I turned I hit a cold spot and was jolted awake. The next morning cooking breakfast and coffee was enough to quickly heat the camper.
I don't advise using your propane cooker as a heat source. Unlike catalytic heaters the flame of a cooktop is inefficient, and lets off loads of carbon monoxide. So cracking a window, which is also required of catalytic heaters, is mandatory.
I'm looking into a 1500BTU catalytic heater. The Coleman Sportscat will do the trick I hope. Otherwise a built in RV furnace could cost about $600.00 Luckily for me I would only need heat for a few days at the beginning and end of the season. I don't see myself winter camping anytime soon.
We have used our electric ceramic heater when we have power and have had good luck with the "Little Buddy" propane heater when we haven't had power. Although people do say that it's safe to run all night with a window open enough, we choose to just warm the place up before bed and again in the morning.
ReplyDeleteLuckily I have a friend who already owns a Coleman Sportscat. He's going to let me borrow it to see if it is enough. He also pointed out my error describing the heater as 1500 Watts. it is 1500BTUs which he thinks is closer to 450 Watts.
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