My First Camping Trip
in the tiny travel trailer
My first camping trip was to Pleasant Acres Campground's in Sussix NJ. This is a 140 mile trip some of which is over some good size mountains with step grades both up and down. The tip was a excellent test of the road handling capabilities of the Tiny Travel Trailer. Here is my report card of the experience
Trailer Brake Performance A+
The trailer stops without issue and maintains braking performance on a 3 mile down slope with continuous braking. The Trailer brakes also supplement tow Vehicle braking. Brake application is smooth and consistent. Im impressed!!
Trailer Stability (rollover, tracking & slip-stream) A
The Trailer tracks behind the tow vehicle correctly and does not jump track shutter or skip. Around tight turns and 15-20° embankments the trailer does not rock or exhibit any oncoming rollover conditions. Rollover was a concern of mine that was quickly put to rest. The trailer front profiles slip through the airstream from the tow Vehicle and I have not experienced instability caused by passing trucks (and the big rigs where blowing by at 80mph). Gas Mileage on the tow Vehicle was far above expectations. I see no difference in gas mileage towing this tiny trailer.
Trailer Tow Stability C-
Yeah this is the bad part. The trailer has a sway issue that is moderate. Below 55 mph there is little sway. If you hit 55mph on a down grade sway sets up to the point that the Tow Vehicle rear end is doing circles. In part the Tow Vehicle may have something to do with the issue as when I have passengers in the rear of the Caravan it tends to be real soft in the tail end. By design the Tiny Travel Trailer has a flaw. The tong weight when the trailer was put on the scales for the first time was Zero. The trailer actually balances perfectly on the axle and that's bad. Since then I have added 2 17lb propane tanks to the front and 100lb of cinderblocks in the sleeper when in tow (132lb but it should be 303-350). I do not have a sway control for the trailer and that may fix the issue but here is something that surprised me a good deal. On the trip back the roads where dry 90% of the trip. When I hit the long Island Expressway at 3am the roads where wet from a prior down pour. Trailer sway was almost entirely eliminated on the wet roadway at any speed under any conditions (up hill down hill etc). What's up with that????? Also I was then able to get the trailer up to 65mph and it smoothes out 100% at this speed. Any thoughts or feedback you may have would be appreciated because I am a bit confused by the wet road thing. It almost seems like there may be a tire rub issue that softens when the tires are wet yet the trailer wheel wells show no sign of rub.
The Campsite
Pleasant Acres Campground is a very nice farm type setting. The park is very family oriented. Not having a family myself I felt a bit out-of-place however I was on this trip with a coworker who has 2 kids and her husbands Relatives which added another dozen or so kids to the site. We had 4 campsites all next to one another which made for a nice community setting and I felt a bit more comfortable hanging out with the crowd.
My campsite, Water electric and sewer are all connected and working. I have hot showers and Air Conditioning making this very comfortable.
Both trailers and everything in-between was the community site :) We had another trailer the next row over that was part of our party.
There was a stream running through this property that provided tons of killer photographs. I spent 5 hours shooting and walking up this stream. NJ is nicer then I remember :)
Come give me a big kiss :)
The Magic Fire with a few boxes of sparklers. The campground does not allow fireworks and there was no fireworks show in the area...bummer
The Pool had an amazing view of the surrounding mountains.
And of course I had to visit the local airfield and try and hire a pilot to do some aerial shots. I could not find anyone to take me up but I did shoot some skydivers coming in.
And that concludes the first camping trip