We Hit the Road Pulling This Sucker - Finally!Jan 6, 2008
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Sunday January 6, 2008, our day of preparing to truly begin the great adventure. We were both excited and, certainly, a bit anxious. After all, Bob has only pulled the fifth wheel for 50 miles from the dealer to our campground in Gadsden. He has no experience backing up or maneuvering in tight spaces. Although we have lived in our new home for nearly two months and gotten comfortable driving our Super Duty diesel truck, we have been within a relatively short distance of Chattanooga, our home for five years, friends and family, and perhaps most importantly at this time in our lives, our RV and truck dealers. Having ready access to help and support proved quite valuable in our lifestyle transition. Tomorrow is the day we cut the umbilical chord and venture into the real world of full-time RVing.
Sunday was a beautiful, warm sunny day, quite a change from the past few days of chilly weather. We are much more cognizant of cold weather now when nighttime heat is sometimes dependent on a limited amount of liquid propane in our two 40 pound tanks (about 20 gallons). We have an electric heat pump, but when the outside temperature dips into the 30s, it switches over to the propane furnace. Since we had just filled both tanks on Friday, we wanted to conserve our supply until we were well down the road. Thus, the warm-up this weekend was welcome.
Preparing for departure is normally not all that complicated, but this was the first time on our own. We were comfortable about preparing the inside i.e. storing loose items, clearing the way to bring in the five slides, tying bungee chords around cupboard door handles, etc. Likewise, we have a fair amount of experience with our outside utility connections. Our real concern was properly hitching the trailer to the truck. The process seems pretty straightforward, but we have never done it ourselves.
Jason, from the RV dealer, was down Friday to do a few minor repairs and address a couple of our concerns and answer some last-minute questions. With his help we developed a checklist for the hitching process. Hitching the RV to the truck is the final task before hitting the road. People are often forthcoming with stories about not hitching properly - creating a picture in our minds of our home crashing onto the pickup truck bed or worse. So, as you might imagine we wanted to get it right!
Besides these normal preparations we also wanted to set up our MyTripJournal.com website and notify our vast audience of followers. : ) As is widely known, Lynda handles computer tasks beyond the most elementary so she spent a good portion of the day on this. Bob focused on other tasks like draining and rinsing the "black water" tank (i.e. toilet tank), checking the lug nuts on the RV wheels, putting water in the fresh water tank (for use during the one night without hookups in Hattiesburg, MS), and climbing onto the roof to remove any debris that may have accumulated on top of the slide-outs. Fortunately, walking on the roof was not a big deal, even for one who is phobic about heights. The roof is flat, not rounded like we thought.
As dusk approached we were as prepared as we knew how to be. Consequently, we had time to enjoy the lovely view out our rear picture window of the Coosa River. We will surely miss this setting. In the planned campgrounds in the coming weeks we have reserved "pull-through" sites so Bob won't have to back into them. He doesn't feel ready for this yet. As a result our rear window views will probably be of other RVs and not pristine nature vistas. Oh well, we can't have everything.
Tomorrow we embark on a two-day drive to Lafayette, LA, in the heart of "Cajun Country." Having never visited the area west of New Orleans, we have included an eight-day stopover on our Slow Gypsy journey. You may ask, why eight days? Well, we had planned a week but the KOA Campground offers a fourth night free with three nights paid, so we just doubled that.
As it has turned out Lafayette is a fortuitous choice. Susan and Robert, friends from England, are headed in that direction in their motor coach, so we will meet them there on Tuesday. We met them a couple of years ago in Natchitoches, LA where Bob was doing some genealogy. We also visited with them at their home in Surrey, England during our three months in Europe in 2006. Susan and Robert have been touring the U.S. for about two years now in their coach. Generally, they return home to England every three or four months, returning a month or so later to continue their journey. To date they have visited 33 states.
When Susan learned about our decision to become full-time RVers on the telephone a while back, she called to Robert, "the Soadys are becoming trailer trash, just like us." Chatting with Lynda on Skype (our Internet phone system) the other day, Susan offered to cook dinner Tuesday night. She said she would cook something soft. Bob asked, "Does someone have a dental problem?" "No," she said," I don't want you to hurt yourself when your face falls onto your plate from being so tired." Several people have commented that driving 500 miles in two days pulling the rig will be exhausting. Bob doesn't think it will be too tiring; after all, he is used to driving 12 hours or more in a stretch. We'll, let you know.
We awoke about 4:30 Monday morning, much too early to start our final preparations for today's 300 mile journey to Hattiesburg, MS. Sunrise was still over two hours away. Fortunately, we were able to get another couple of hours sleep before arising at 7:00AM. Bob had made our breakfast shakes the night before, so we could readily get to our final tasks before hitting the road. He set 9 o'clock as our target departure time. According to his plan, this translates into arriving in Hattiesburg about 3:00PM. We are going to "boondock" (camping without utility hook-ups) at the local Wal*Mart for the one night.
We chose to stop in Hattiesburg so we could enjoy a fine-dining experience at the Purple Parrot restaurant. Several years earlier when we were scouting the South for a possible place to settle, we happened to be in Hattiesburg (known to Bob as the home of Southern Mississippi University - where Brett Favre of the Green Bay Packers went to college). We were told about the Purple Parrot at our hotel. It allegedly had a coat-and-tie dress code, which seemed to us a bit bizarre, given our impressions of Hattiesburg. Upon further checking we confirmed our suspicions about the dress code. That evening we had such a lovely experience, we have talked about it ever since. Consequently, we had no option but to return, since our route took us through Hattiesburg.
Shortly after eight we were ready for our final task, hooking the truck and trailer. Bob was pleased since his target time to depart was well within reach. He is big on being on time, as family and friends know all-too-well. He backed the truck up with little difficulty and the connecting pin of the fifth wheel slid nicely into the groove of the hitch. Try as we may however, we could not get the locking device to close. A nearby neighbor came over to offer a hand and together we worked at it for about 45 minutes. Although the neighbor drove a motor coach, he said he had hitched over 100 fifth wheels, since he used to be in the business. At one point he went and got a hammer that gave us some moments of concern, as you might expect. After several whacks to no avail, he gave up and retreated back to his rig.
By now it was about 9:20, already past our planned departure time. Rather than continue to beat our heads against the wall, we called Leon, our dealer, who said he would send someone over immediately. About an hour later, Chris arrived and locked the hitch in less than a minute. The RV hitch only needed to be raised slightly to allow the locking device to engage. It pays to know what your doing! Chris graciously said that the small gully in front of the rig made this a relatively high difficulty hitch job. Before we drove off Chris insisted that Bob pull the fifth wheel to level ground, then unhitch it and rehitch. This short exercise went quite smoothly. Hopefully the same will be true when we depart Lafayette.
By now it was nearly 11:00 AM. Not a big problem, and Bob remained unperturbed. We should still make it to Hattiesburg before dark and in plenty of time for our anticipated dinner at the Purple Parrot. So we bid Chris bon voyage and headed off into our uncharted sunset.
The drive down I-59 through Alabama and Mississippi was smooth and uneventful. Bob found that pulling the trailer was not particularly stressful or tiring. He could have gone farther than the 300 miles but is still committed to keeping our daily driving within the 200-300 mile range. Of course, driving on the Interstate is easier than in city traffic or narrow two-lane roads. We made one stop for fuel (ours and the truck) at a Flying J Truck Stop. As Lynda noted, Bob didn't take out any of the pumps pulling through. Fortunately, there were two rows of diesel pumps especially for RVs.
About 5:00 PM we approached the exit for the Hattiesburg Wal*Mart, except for the delay in getting hitched, the day had gone quite smoothly. We both were looking forward to getting parked, freshened up, and catching a taxi to the Purple Parrot. All of a sudden as we exited the Interstate a message appeared on the truck dash - Trailer Disconnect! As one can imagine that got our attention. Lynda whirled around and Bob checked the rearview mirror. The fifth wheel was still there! We could not imagine how the trailer could become unhitched. Lynda called Jason at our dealer who said the electrical plug that links the electrical systems together may have become loose, but the lights on the trailer were still on.
Since the rig was still following us Bob decided there wasn't much we could do in the middle of rush-hour traffic. During these moments of heart-stopping anxiety, we missed Wal*Mart. With the help of Rosie (our GPS voice) we made several turns and finally arrived at our destination for the night. After meandering around the outer reaches of the parking lot Bob found a level spot where he parked. We then proceeded to check all aspects of the connection between the truck and the fifth wheel. We had Leon, our dealer on the line, for this process. Finding nothing unusual - how would we know? - We decided it was nothing to worry about. Let's hope!
A little after 5:30 PM Lynda called for a taxi. She was told it would be there after six. That was fine since the restaurant didn't start serving until six. By 6:30 PM we started wondering how much after six, so we called again to learn that we were the victims of a shift change. A third call resulted in, "He'll be there in two or three minutes." At 7 o'clock we were finally on our way with one of the most negative, noncommunicative cabbies each of us had ever experienced. Fortunately, it was only a ten-minute ride.
The restaurant and the food lived up to our memories. Lynda had duck and Bob grouper. With wine (Lynda) and two martinis (Bob) and friendly service, we were both ready for a good nights sleep as our first day's journey was about to close. We asked our server to call us a taxi, hoping for an improvement in service. The service was certainly better but the driver was the same guy. As we were soon to learn, we really didn't have an option. You see there is only one taxi in Hattiesburg.
To our surprise we were the only RVers using the Wal*Mart parking lot that night. As it turned out it was quiet and peaceful. We both slept well.
