We had never pulled a 5th wheel before. We had never been in an RV park or campground before. And prior to our January departure, had never even hitched up anything to a truck before! But that is how we roll - we go ALL IN and then figure out the details. Right. And after saying that ... here is what NOT to do when driving your RV for the FIRST time!
Do NOT forget to turn corners WIDE - especially the right turns. In my husband's defense, he turned every corner on our trip with tremendous expertise except this ONE time. Let me back up just a little ... We brought the RV home on Saturday after what seemed at the time to be a very thorough walk through / orientation but what later proved to be a big, fat blur of instructions having to do with knobs, switches, and gauges. And, for the next five days, this giant RV sat in our driveway while we carried clothes, dishes, bath towels, and everything else we though we might need for our next few weeks living in an RV.
This RV is a monster, I tell you. It is 41.3 feet long, 13.3 feet high and has five slide outs. And while it didn't look that much bigger parked on the dealer's lot surrounded by other RVs - it looks stinking enormous sitting in our driveway. Yep - many of the neighbors slowed down as they passed our house over these next few days of our loading, wondering what the heck we were up to now.
Big, huh? At one point on our journey we parked next to a semi-tractor trailer and we were the SAME SIZE!!
Wednesday morning FINALLY arrived and we woke up early and eager to begin our adventure. We did the final packing and completed my checklists that I had obsessively and compulsively compiled on the advice of friends and from various websites over the weeks and months leading up to our departure. Antenna down? Check. Refrigerator and shower doors latched? Check. And finally I ran out into the street to take the obligatory Facebook photo of us departing on our maiden voyage.
Look closely - Bill is in the driver's seat and READY to ROLL! Wave hi to Bill.
Woohoo, here we go! Now before I continue, I should explain that there is a lot of construction on our street as three new homes are being built and so we had to zig zag our way down the street avoiding a backhoe on the back of a long trailer and another trailer carrying a load of bricks - all which might (or might not) have contributed to our lack of focus on what we were doing - and we slowly approached the corner to exit our neighborhood, only a couple of blocks from our house.
Our exhilaration and delirious smiles of giddy anticipation were quickly replaced with gasps and expressions of horror as we heard a loud CLUMP and felt the truck grind to a halt. Oh my GOSH - we had just put the back right wheels in the ditch! Yes - we sure did that - no joke! Bill proceeded to scramble out of the truck to survey the damage while I doubled over ready to lose my breakfast. I felt so sorry for us both - Bill for feeling so responsible at damaging our beautiful, new motorhome and me for being such a lousy co pilot. Hadn't I worked hard to perfect my backseat driving over the years only to fail miserably when I was needed the most?
After about an hour of impatient pacing and waving off neighbors as they stopped by to offer assistance, a semi-tractor trailer wrecker showed up and lifted us out of the ditch. We were SURE our trip was over before it had even started but there was surprisingly very little damage! We hauled it back to the dealer where they opened up all the slides, set everything up, and ran a complete mechanical check to determine that the damage was all cosmetic and could easily be repaired once we returned to Tulsa the following month. There were a few scratches on the top where the street sign scraped the side, a small dent on an under panel in the rear, a bar holding the spare tire was slightly bent, and a couple of screws were jarred loose on the ladder leading to the roof.
Poor, poor trailer in the ditch. So sad - right? (Really it's okay if you laugh - we are laughing at ourselves. Now.)
So we ended up leaving two hours later than we had intended. This resulted in us driving through Dallas / Fort Worth at rush hour and contend with a traffic accident in Fort Worth. Consequently, we did not reach our intended destination of Waco, Texas that first night. Bill, however, drove expertly for the remainder of our trip - and we NEVER forgot to turn WIDE again!
When we would share our experience with new friends that we met along the way they would immediately attempt to console us by sharing their own horror stories of sheering off awnings, putting tree branches through roofs, or ripping off air conditioning units on low archways or bridges. LOL - it seems that everyone has a story. I DO know that God certainly wanted us to slow down that day. Who knows what tragedy He protected us from that day or in the future by allowing us a moment of carelessness. And now at every, single corner I shout, "TURN WIDE!" I will never shirk my backseat driver's duties AGAIN! Isn't Bill a lucky guy?
