How many times have you been pleasantly rolling down the road, hit a bump or rough section of highway and hear the dreaded noise of something falling out of a cabinet? Show of hands…
Yeah, us too.
We have this set of cabinets in the “kitchen.” We store cans, spices and other items in the upper cabinets and fill the lower one with soda cans and water bottles. These cabinets are not reachable while we are driving as the front driver slide covers them so it’s the spot to store things we know we won’t need on the drive.
Many of our camping is off-road in the middle of the forest or circle camping in the desert so rough roads are not unusual. Not a problem, we know this and pack the cupboards accordingly; glass items sandwiched in between some sort of non-breakable. On one of our first few trips in our fancy “new to us” Phaeton we heard that noise. Something had fallen but we couldn’t find it. Everything was in order in the entire coach. We didn’t figure it out until we got home. The bottom cabinet had popped open just enough for some water bottles to fall out into the tiny space between the slide wall and said cabinet. One of them was particularly hard to get at and only my small hands would work. Yeah, short people to the rescue! Thank goodness the bottles were plastic.
Now we were faced with how the heck do we keep this from happening again. First thing was to tighten the receiver thingy. I know, such a scientific word. Funny thing was that it wasn’t loose to begin with so we had to figure out another way to keep the cabinet closed while driving.
Enter this magic device. A simple black rubber band. A quick loop on the handles keeps it secure through all of the rough roads. Sometimes you have to channel your inner MacGyver.
The trick is to remember to loop through the handles before we leave. I have a mental checklist that I go through as we are getting ready to leave a campsite, some of which are: lock the shower door, latch the sliding doors, sink covers in place, move Marlee’s water and food bowls and loop the handles. Well, I forgot that last item when we left Lone Pine, CA before sunrise for the long drive home on our last trip. Anyone whose driven I-10 between Beaumont and Palm Springs knows just how rough that stretch of freeway is. So many states have figured out how to lay smooth concrete for their freeways, why can’t CalTrans? As soon as I heard it, I remembered the rubber band and ran back to check. Yep, there it was sitting so pretty on the counter above the handles it should have been looped through. I counted 5 water bottles laying haphazardly on the floor and one of the doors open. There was no use trying to fix it now; nothing was damaged or would be for the rest of the drive so I left it alone. And I did write myself a note to fix it before we opened the slides for unloading when we got home.
Let’s hear it; what are tricks do you have for smooth sailing down the road?
Argh. Our first mishap on our first trip out with our first RV was that cabinet below the TV right next to the slider. Yup. I know it well. I read your check off list and wondered if you had just copied and pasted mine. I use a large colorful hair tie for that lower cupboard. That way I won’t miss it.
Too funny! Thankfully our mishaps have been very few.
Hi! I’m Patti from Port Hueneme, CA! My husband, Tommy and I have an older Bounder MH but next year we’ll be buying another and head out to see the USA full time for about 2 years…we want to find somewhere else to settle down. Anyway, this is a little off topic but it was my “newbie” mistake…I was so excited to have a MH that I could actually pop popcorn as we traveled down the road…so, I put the popcorn in the Microwave and enjoyed the sights….after about 5 min or so we smelled something burning! Yep! The popcorn…apparently MH microwaves are not exactly like the ones at home and did not need as much time! Now, with a new MH (brand new! 1st trip!!) I had burnt pop corn smell! BOO!!! However, someone told me to keep a bowl of vinegar in there and it would absorb the smell…it DID! I kept changing the bowl a few times a day for maybe 2 days. Smell…gone forever! The bowels of vinegar did indeed then smell like the popcorn! Ha! I am excited to begin our journey either late next year or earlyish 2019!! Love your blog! Happy trails!!
Thank you Patti! Very exciting you’ll be full-timers soon; I’m a little partial but you can’t go wrong with a Phaeton. Thanks for the vinegar tip, too.