My job usually keeps me on the road most of the time so living in the trailer isn't a problem from that perspective. Matt works remotely and with the support of a little technology, our AT&T cellular modem, he's all set too. Our work-life isn't a problem.
Our initial shake-down cruise was to New York City to get married which we did on May 29th of 2014. I have to acknowledge the City Clerk's Office in NYC for a very smooth processes. We had a wait to get our marriage license on Wednesday but on Thursday when we were there for our actually wedding we were in and out in 45 minutes. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
We planned on starting our adventure on Memorial Day. We wanted to get as far as Charlotte, NC but ran into a problem that morning when we tried to hook up the trailer to the truck. We got it connected but couldn't get the leveling bars tight enough to make the truck and trailer level. We were shown how to correctly do this at the dealer but some time had passed since we were shown and we were a little confused. In hindsight we should have videoed the process when we were shown. I guess hindsight is certainly 20/20.
We finally figured it out on Tuesday and hit the road headed to NYC. Since our timing was based around our plan to get our marriage license we had to drive as far as possible on Tuesday night so we could get get to the campground and then to city hall for our marriage license on Wednesday. The cut off was 3:30 PM so we had to book it to get there in time.
We headed up I-95 towards NY with few problems. The Suburban, that typically gets 16 MPG, ended up getting 7-8 MPG towing the trailer so we were constantly in search of our next fuel stop. Since we were towing a 31 foot trailer pulling into a small gas station wasn't an option. so we had to find truck stops. Some actually have RV fueling lanes that are designed to make getting into and out of the truck stop easy. We generally used Pilot and Flying J truck stops since they have an iPhone app that shows us where the truck stops are located and how much their gas cost. They are pretty common on the interstate system so we took advantage of that on the entire trip. I love that app.
We headed into Baltimore we ran into our first big problem. Being inexperienced we didn't realize that you can't take an RV with propane tanks into the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. We figured that out as we came up I-95 and managed to get off the interstate just before the tunnel. We were stuck in downtown Baltimore at almost 2:00 AM faced with the prospect of driving through the city pulling the long long trailer. We managed to make it though downtown Baltimore with Matt's most excellent mapping skills. After overcoming that little surprise we finally decided to call it a night and we parked at a Pilot truck stop for the night. Most Pilots let you stop for the night. Since they don't offer any services, like electricity or water, we end up boon docking which is basically camping without hooking up. The trailer has a refer that runs on propane but the air conditioner requires shore power (I love how some of these terms are related to Navy terms). That means that we can only boon dock when it's cool enough that we don't need the air conditioner. We were lucky that night that it was in the 60s when we finally crawled into bed.
All in all our first day towing the camper was pretty easy. The late start meant that we ended up driving late into the night to make our timeline for getting married but it was certainly worth it. The trailer and the truck weren't as level as we would have liked but it worked out.
We finally got to our campground in Jersey City at 11:00 AM the next morning. Matt selected the campground for its location next to a ferry and public transportation so we had easy access to the city. So we made it to NYC. What happened next was wonderful.
Todd
No comments:
Post a Comment