Our First RV Road Trip
July 2020, the summer of the pandemic, Igor and I decided we wanted to rent an RV and take the kids on a vacation. As we started searching for campers to rent, Igor floated the idea of let’s just buy one instead and save on the rental. At first, I said this would be just like our idea to go on a cruise. He said it would be so so much fun. But we were trapped in a small room with a child who went to bed at 6pm during a hurricane and Igor was motion sick the entire time. “Umm no” was my answer, we are not buying one until we actually experience being in an RV…
One week later, we bought a damn RV instead of renting one…. We had NO idea what we were doing. Quickly we realized we needed to sell my car, to get an SUV to pull the camper. Driving in a pick-up with three kids was just not ideal. Of course, we like to do things on the fly, so we booked a camp site down in RI for 5 days later. Then we listed my car for sale and began the search for a Suburban. The Suburban happened first, we lucked out and found one that had been just traded in, cheese-itz still on the floor. So, we bought the Suburban before we had sold my car. This was Thursday. Our vacation started on Saturday. We had to wait for my veteran plates to come in so back home we went. Meanwhile the RMV was not allowing in person appointments but we need to get our new camper registered…. Friday comes around and we sold our Acadia. The meeting went so well, but just as the guy tries to leave, he had left the key in the ignition, it gets stuck and the battery dies. OMG so we jump start it and say we promise it never does that… just get out ahaha.
Saturday morning, the plates come in for my Suburban, so we run down pick it up, rush home and load the car. We call our insurance agent who says she will mail us our plate but she gives us the number. We proceed to take a piece of cardboard and write the number on it. Truly believing it was all kismet we start driving down but knowing nothing about RVs we pull it down on a ball hitch and no sway bars. (This basically was a complete rookie move).
It was the longest slowest scariest drive. I was in a cold sweat the entire time. If a tractor trailer drove by, I could feel the sweat roll down by back. The kids wanted to stop to pee. Separately. Then they needed snacks. Igor sat in the back seat and Ledger wanted to nurse. Fail. We finally make it to our campground that had the most absurd entrance, with telephone poles on each side. You had to weirdly swing out to get through it and even then, I was not use to the added 40ft behind me. (I cleared it)
Let’s talk about parking... So, we watched a million YouTube videos on how to set up the RV. I mean who knows how to set up a septic hose if you don’t have an RV or about leveling? So, Igor gets out and we call each other on speaker phone. I tell the kids 4, 2, and 4 months to be quiet and patient so Mummy can back us into the spot… And of course, they are so accommodating & silent ahaha. So, we back it in and use our leveling blocks on one side so DeLorean is balanced side to side. We are all set up. Except we have no propane in the outside grille. I mean the tanks look open? What are we missing? So, I walk over and ask a neighboring site if she could look. So, comes over, shakes the tank a bit and says now try. I stare at her and say did you just use the hit it method? She says yep… it worked ahaha, so we now have a grille. We think we are so cool, all set up and let’s go adventure.
Speed up to that evening... As we are laying down, the boys are in their bunk beds, Ledger in the bed with us. Igor is asleep in seconds. I’m sitting there feeling the blood rush to my head. It’s not level front to back. I could whack Igor with a pillow but of course he’s sound asleep. I toss and turn all night. By 2am Lucas and Logan have padded down to our bed as well since it’s a new place. And its freezing! We had no idea the AC would work better than our house, so now we are all huddled underneath the blankets trying to stay warm. I can’t even stop laughing at how much we have learned. In the morning we leveled the camper front to back so that we are not getting a head rush every night.
Looking back, I shake my head at how much we learned. When we got home, we listed DeLorean for rental and she was out flat until December when we took her off to do some repairs. 16 rentals, good and bad… Mr. Fecal smear will get his own post entirely.