A Week of Firsts

What a wild 1st week of this adventure. It truly was a week of firsts. Here are a few.

First time setting up Cora

Ruby (4yo) has decided we should name our travel trailer, “Cora.”  So “Cora” it is. Well, this was the first time I ever really set her up properly. When we got her in January, I drove her straight from the dealership in Texas (another first — pulling anything with a truck) to Oklahoma and into RV storage. But for the last 4 months or so, I’ve spent my evenings learning everything I can about RV’s/trailers.  But until this week, it was all theory to me. So much so, in fact, that I arrived at the RV park in OKC with a trailer full of Amazon packages.

I pulled into our spot for the week, and began to set everything up just as I had been planning for 2 months. After about 30 minutes of bustling about, I had Cora all setup: water, electrical, sewer, and cable TV. I was pretty proud of myself, though I looked like a total noob with all of my emptied cardboard boxes.

I learned two major things from the first week:

1. Make sure to level the camper. If it’s not level, it’s tough to walk in, but it’s also tough for sinks to drain properly.
   
2. There’s a lot of give in the front landing gear, which allows the trailer to sway side to side a little as you walk the length. I did some research online, then walked around the RV park to see what other 5th wheels were using.  After seeing it all over, I bought a Campco King Pin Stabilizer. I set it up this morning after we pulled into Sayre, OK. Works great!
   

First night sleeping in Cora

Going from a king-sized bed to a “camper queen” was a bit of an adjustment. Again, Amazon to the rescue with a 2” memory foam mattress topper. Despite the downgrade, Erin and I have been sleeping quite well this week. I think all of the running about packing up the house wore us out pretty good.

First time showering in an RV

The shower are cramped, and the hot water heater is only 6 gallons, but it does the job. A few weeks ago, the Today show reported that it was actually better for your body if you didn’t shower every day. We’ve been putting that to the test lately.

First time dumping the tanks

This was the scariest thing for me. I had nightmares of some hose breaking off and spewing raw sewage all over myself and onlookers. I pictured dumping our waste similar to Cousin Eddie in Christmas Vacation: standing over a hole in the ground, sputtering out a week’s worth of our crap.  

But, consider me delightfully surprised. The Rhino Sewer Hose we bought snapped on easily to our drain and into the sewer drain in the ground. I slowly opened the black tank (black first!), and waited for poo-mageddon. But nothing happened, just some flowing “water” down the pipe. I flushed it with the gray water, and packed it all up. Easy peasy.  The funniest part to me was how excited the girls were to help out. They were scared of it — they were actually quite fascinated.

First time filling up diesel at a truck stop

We pulled over somewhere between OKC and Sayre into a Route 66 gas station / truck stop. I spied the few empty big-rig diesel bays and decided I could play with the big boys. I hopped out, reacher for the gas pump, and realized it was the biggest gas pump handle ever. The hose was huge, too. This bad boy was meant to pump a serious amount of diesel. The nozzle, though oversized, still fit into my gas tank. I pushed the lever up under the handle, then walked inside to use the restroom.

About half-way through the bladder evacuation, I thought: “Well, I assume all gas pumps will turn themselves off.”  Then 30 seconds later, I was sprinting outside to make sure. Erin, paper towel in hand, was sopping up spilt diesel fuel from the side of the truck. Oops.

First time watching street racing

We stopped at an awesome little city park in Sayre, OK. 

$12/night gets you electric and water hookups. There’s a dump station on your way out of the park. Unfortunately, all the restaurants were closed when we rolled in … for lunch … on a Saturday. Cmon people! We made sandwiches, mommy and Henry took naps, and me and the girls went for a bike ride.

On our ride, I stopped in a the pro shop at the Sayre City Golf Course. I talked with the teenage boy behind the counter who mentioned there would be street car races a few miles away tonight. “How quaint,” I thought, as I pictured 30 or so high school boys racing their supped up Civics.

But as we pulled into a dirt lot marked “Spectator Parking”, Erin and I both gasped There were hundreds of cars there and well over 3,000 people. I’ve never seen legal street racing like this — it was pretty fun. Shockingly the kids didn’t mind the noise, and the local guy I stood next to didn’t mind all my “city boy” questions. As I sit here at night with the window open, I can still here engines roaring from a few miles down the road.

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All in all, it’s been a thoroughly exhausting week. Despite all the purging we had done in the months prior, we still had a ton of stuff that we needed to sort through. Garage sale, 7-year-old’s birthday party, then packing and packing, and Goodwill drop-off’s galore. Erin and I fought a lot — we were both at the end of our ropes and the smallest little things set us off. But now we’re sitting together in our little house on wheels. One light on, window open, and a slight breeze. We made it. We reached the end of that incredibly busy chapter, and we’re on the cusp of something incredible. I can’t wait to see what happens next!