Getting ready to leave for our summer trip involves plenty of work.  I tested the telescope with the solar filter and camera mount to make sure everything would work well when viewing the eclipse.  Note the sunspot:

I filled the fresh water tank and turned on the pump which supplies pressure to all the fixtures in the RV.  I heard a spraying noise, and ran into the master bathroom to find the toilet leaking fresh water.  I winterized the RV after our 2016 Assateague Island Sukkos trip, which involves opening low-point drains and then opening all water fixtures to allow the water to drain out of the fixtures and out the low-point drains.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think of the toilets as water fixtures, so I didn’t do this.  The toilet’s supply valve must have been filled with water and cracked over the winter when it froze.  Getting the supply valve disconnected from the toilet was easy:

I ordered two new valves, since the kids’ toilet broke in the same way.  The new valves won’t arrive before we leave, so I had them shipped to my brother’s house where they should be waiting for us when we arrive on Sunday.  In the mean time, I capped the water supply line so we can use the water in the rest of the RV:

For now we’ll have to flush by filing a container with water and manually pouring it into the toilet.  So much for our glamorous RV lifestyle.

There may be some trips for which a massive 5th wheel like our 2014 Avalanche 360RB is too large.  I found a truck camper on Craigslist and bought it for $500.  It’s a 1990 Sunline C951.  The floorplan can be found on page 11 of the manual:

The truck camper needs a good bit of work, hopefully I can get everything working.

In order to bring the truck camper home, the truck needed tie-downs to attach the truck camper to the truck.  I could have purchased a set for $450, but it rankled to pay almost as much for the tie-downs as the truck camper, so I decided to build tie-downs instead.  I welded up a pair of rear tie-downs using a bar attached to the tow receiver:

For the front tie-downs, I based my design on commercially available tie-downs:

During construction, I installed the tie-downs to make sure the fit was correct.  To tie-down the truck camper, extension bars are installed to bring a mount point out beyond the undercarriage of the truck:

Stay tuned for the rebuild of the truck camper!