One more delay, one more launch

Continued from The Great Thaw.

As soon as we made the decision to aim for a March 14 launch date, we kicked into high gear. We overhauled our entire rig, decluttering and reorganizing every corner. We jumped on repairs and projects, especially attempting to stop the leaks we incurred during the blizzard. After 4 months stationary, our RV was not road-ready. And us? We were getting there. We were still battling a little mental whiplash. Last year, we experienced travel fatigue from moving fast. So, we slowed down and moseyed around New England. Then we rented a house. Then we broke our lease and became stationary RVers. Then we started itching to hit the road again. It was tough to trust our instincts when they were so jumbled.

But, as we approached the final days before our tentative launch date, the excitement started bubbling. Not just for the adventure, but for returning to a lifestyle we had known for over 4 years. We understand how to nomad. We've gotten a lot of practice. Booking campgrounds again felt like returning to normal routine. Packing and securing our belongings was second nature.

Also a result of this lifestyle? Our ability to stay on our toes. So when the weather forecast shifted, and high winds were expected for March 14, we made a quick decision. We delayed our first campground stay one day, with an arrival date on Sunday, March 15 instead. Initially, we planned the 14th to get out ahead of a cold front that was moving in, but now that looked pushed to about Tuesday. Staying until Sunday meant we wouldn't need to worry about driving in Saturday's high winds. It also helped to decompress our pre-launch tasks and repairs, which was especially useful now that we were having continued issues with our leaking bedroom AC unit.

During the blizzard, a few large branches came down and punctured holes in our aluminum roof. We struggled to find time to patch and seal them between periods of rain, and so when the leak over our bedroom continued causing us problems, we were disappointed, but not surprised. We tried a few more patch jobs and even tried covering the area with a bucket, but water kept getting through. This was an unfortunate place to have a persistent leak because it was right over our bed. Anywhere else, we'd likely be able to place a bucket to catch the water until our next patch attempt. In this case, all we could do was place a pile of towels and hope no feet – or cats – got soaked in the night.

In the wee hours of the morning on March 12, that soakage happened. The forecast was saying light rain, but we got downpours, and those downpours poured right into our bedroom. Once again, we needed to wait patiently for the roof to dry enough to get up there and check for more holes and cracks. March 12 remained wet, but the forecast was showing no rain for March 13. Now that we were staying through the 14th, we had extra time to let the sealant dry, keep an eye on it, and hopefully stop this leak once and for all.

We prioritized this repair on the 13th.

The patch job over the 4-inch hole still looked good, and Anthony reported that water was pooling over it but not going through. That's great news...except then, where was the leak coming from? Anthony couldn't see anything obvious, even when he took the cover to the AC unit off. The only possible culprit was that the original hole extended a little further, possibly forming a small crack under the AC's edge. It was a good theory; the leak had stopped constantly dripping and instead piddled down in spurts. This could mean that it was pooling near the AC's edge and then all coming through at once. We wouldn't be able to reach that area without removing the entire unit, and that was far too big an undertaking in our final days before launch. But, with the cover off, Anthony sprayed some more sealant in hopes that some would seep into the possible crack.

We weren't supposed to get rain, but once again, the weather forecast was wrong, and we got some rain/wintry mix in the overnight hours. Nothing as bad as the downpours from the night before, but enough for us to test the latest patch job. No leaks the whole night! We took it as a win, but we knew we weren't out of the woods. There is still a very high chance that heavier downpours will cause the leak to return. But for now, we felt comfortable reconnecting our AC silencer and moving onto our next project.

Last year, on our final drive day before making it back to our home-base, our tongue jack's motor died. It was able to extend the jack but not retract it. So every time we hitched and unhitched, we needed to retract the jack manually. Since the jack was only a year old, we contacted the company for a replacement, but they didn't have any in stock. They initially said they'd get more in in the fall, and so we waited. We were slow traveling for those couple of months anyway, so we didn't mind needing to manually operate it for a while. Then, the replacement shipment got delayed even more, and the estimated delivery time was spring. Normally, this would be enough for us to just buy a totally new one, but we didn't think we'd be traveling until at least May because we had signed our rental lease until June! But once the rental didn't work out and we knew travels might be sooner in our future, we began wondering about our options. This current jack is the Ultra Fab Phoenix 4000. It's our second one, though we hardly knew the first because it came damaged. Despite our motor dying after just months – a complaint that seems to frequent the Amazon reviews – we do love this jack. It's sleek, speedy, and far more weather-proof than the one that came stock on our trailer. But we didn't want to purchase a new one at full price, especially when we found other well-rated jacks on Amazon for much cheaper. Beyond that, half the time we looked, the jack was out-of-stock anywhere online. Makes sense, considering the company was waiting for a shipment. We were torn, but we decided to hold off on any rash decisions. After all, we weren't planning to ship out for at least several weeks.

Our decision to wait was a good one. On January 16, we got a surprise.

What a relief to have our new jack in-hand! Jacques Quatre, if you will, because it's our 4th tongue jack. Yes, our 4th tongue jack in 4 years.

We wouldn't be installing our new Jacques in wintertime, though, and we assumed we'd just cart him along with us in our travels. But then we stayed stationary, and stayed stationary some more. And with our final 1-day delay, we thought, "Hey, it's warm enough-ish. Let's see if we can install this thing."

We purposely waited until our final day so we could hitch the truck up and stay hitched overnight. We needed all pressure off the tongue in order to remove the old jack and connect the new. It's a simple process to bolt it into the trailer tongue, but since the jack is electric, we also needed to connect wires. We're not very well-versed in working with electric, but between the tongue jack and our bathroom ceiling light that was waiting to be reconnected, we figured there's no time like the present. Anthony got to work crimping the wires, and the installation went a lot more smoothly than we expected. Before we knew it, he was declaring success!

I was excited to try it out, and take a video for the blog showing it retracting just as it should.

...But oh wait, I never took the video, because when I went to press the button, it wasn't working. The whole jack seemed dead. Anthony immediately assumed it was his wire crimping job because he was a newb. And so, on the evening before our launch, we headed out to Lowe's in search of some butts! Butt connectors, that is. Anthony spliced them together, and voila! It worked once again. But by this point, I was ready to make my Saturday night pizza and just took him at his word.

That meant, though, that we could leave Jacques Trois in the state where he died and move into our next bout of travels with the added ease of just pressing buttons to raise and lower our tongue, just as God intended it. Au revoir, Jacques Trois!

As for our other electric job – reconnecting our bathroom light – the wires aren't long enough to just crimp them back together, and since Anthony is even more of a novice at soldering than he is at butt splicing, we'll save that job for the pros.

We had one more casualty of our winter stationary time, and that's one of our water lines, near our pump, that also sprung a leak. We noticed that our pump kept running every 30 seconds or so when it was turned on, and though still pumping fine, the water pressure seemed a tad low. Soon, we put two and two together. During one pumpout appointment, James noticed dripping from around our gray tank. He and Anthony checked to make sure it wasn't a leak in the gray tank, but it looked to be water from melting ice above the gray tank. Then one quiet evening when the furnace was off, I heard spraying coming from near the mechanical closet where the water pump is located. We assumed the leak was between the water pump and the gray tank, and so we made a plan to climb underneath to get a look as soon as the ground stopped being so cold and icy. This became one of the projects for March 13. We have a nifty flexible camera that attaches to our cell phones. It was the perfect apparatus to give the water lines an endoscopy. As expected, Anthony spotted dripping water likely from a line in the wall behind our mechanical cabinet. Thankfully, it's fresh water and it's dripping outside over the gray tank, and not inside our cabinet. Again, not something we can fix without the pros (unless we want to remove our entire furnace, which absolutely no thanks because someone should get paid to undertake that feat). But, we always find use out of diagnosing the problem, even if we can't fix it ourselves. This way, we can save the pros time and they can dive right into the repairs.

It wasn't the 100% checked-off list we'd hope for in an ideal world, but our pre-launch ducks were certainly lined up enough to follow through with our plan. Early in the morning on March 15, we packed up the rig for travel for the first time in over 4 months.

Things came full circle this day. We traveled from our home-base down to the KOA in Clarksboro, NJ – the first campground we ever stayed at as full-timers. Just like in 2022, we stayed stationary into the depths of winter, feeling lost in our period of transition. Just like in 2022, we set out for a ridiculously long, 375+ mile travel day to make it somewhere with year-round camping, south enough to avoid more winter weather. Just like in 2022, we were exhausted but so relieved once we finally pulled into our campsite. But that's where the similarities end. As we went for our post-arrival campground walk, we talked about how much has changed since the last time we were there. So much growth as RVers. So many life changes. It made us appreciate even more how far we've come. We didn't plan to have a Season 5 of full-time travel. I even joked that I should title this blog post "Forced Nomadism." But we can't deny that we're connected to this lifestyle.

Being parked through such extreme weather definitely put Buggy in a delicate position. We kept an extra close eye on him during the drive, but everything went smoothly – well, about as smoothly as 9 hours on the road can go. And once we finally got on full hookups, we were able to check our water line once again to localize the leak better. We saw no leak while on city water hookups, and could therefore confirm that the leak was in the section between our fresh tank and water pump. We ruled out the problem being in our internal plumbing, which would have been a more challenging fix. More information to bring to our next service appointment, so they can streamline the repair.

And our new Jacques? We were all ready to unhitch and settle into our campsite, when we went to extend the jack and...nothing. No extension. No retraction. Not even the light would turn on. Did the wires disconnect again?! That's when I noticed an "on/off" button and pressed it. The whole jack turned on! We had so many questions. Did Jacques Trois have that button? I checked, and yes. Yes he did. But we never used it, so did that mean he was "on" all the time even when he was supposed to be "off?" Did they update the jacks so now they automatically turn off? We're still utterly flummoxed by this development, but at least Jacques Quatre seems to have been successfully butt connected. He just needs to be turned on every time we hook up. Got it.

2026 has been far from perfect, and we launched without a perfect rig, perfect plan, or perfect morale. But imperfect is what keeps the adventure alive and what builds resilience. That resilience comes in handy when we're thrusting ourselves back into full-time travel. We strategically left on March 15 to get ahead of a cold front that would potentially bring more snow to New England. But, on the other side of that cold front was a severe weather outbreak for millions in the Mid-Atlantic. The Clarksboro KOA was under threat of severe thunderstorms, high winds, and if the storms organized, possible tornadoes. There was no rest for us after our long launch day. Now we needed to jump into weather vigilance. What were we expecting for our roadcoming, anyway? A big hug? Please. Severe weather seems much more fitting for our travel lifestyle. Time to watch the radars and hope we made the right decision launching out when we did.

To be continued.