Hitting the Open Road
Sell everything you own and hit the open road. Sounds tempting and we bit, not fully realizing the complexity of this lifestyle. Backing up the truck and setting a camper on the hitch sounds simple but my brain started pulling up lists of things to factor in. For me that set off a chain reaction of mechanical considerations.
For example, the 81-year old widower in the camp site next to ours is pulling a 26 foot camper with a gas Toyota SUV, admits that he is probably way overloaded and worried about his brakes going down the mountains in West Virginia. That is 100 percent not me.
With a law enforcement background and having responded to lots of crashes I have seen the results of improper loads, unsecured items, and speed. And ultimately, it’s’ never how fast you can GO, but how fast you can STOP.
Like much of our departure from past reality, rolling on down the highway has been a researched and cautious endeavor. Our less-than-svelte cruiser of a camper had spent almost the entirety of our ownership sitting in dry dock. Its first hop was about seven miles. A 40-mile relocation after that and it spent more than a year growing roots. There was landscaping, corners got filled and it became a tiny home of sorts. Nary a care was given to mobile ability. That all was set to change in October as the rig was pointed toward upper Wisconsin and the first destination on this adventure.
As the date neared, I fretted about the mechanical ability of our setup. That led to countless research hours and an eventual upgrade from three-quarter to one-ton truck. Switching from gas to diesel. Short box to long and swapping out the monstrosity of a fifth-wheel hitch in the bed to a new connection using an easily removable ball in the back of the truck. While major decisions in our relationship are ALWAYS a team effort, these choices were an exception. Donelle says that when she starts hearing things like horse power, torque and GCVWR she starts to fade from consciousness. I was spending like a fiend (and praying that decisions were sound.) So now that the reserve fund has taken a pretty good elbow punch we’re ready to roll?
Well, I happened to notice that the perfectly acceptable looking tires have a born-on date of 2019. Crud! Looks like a date with the tire guy. No one said this life-style was cost effective.
We left central MN and drove straight to the tire place. A couple hours later and we headed for a layover stop in Southern Minnesota. A test run of sorts. I chose routes that did not involve going through Minneapolis or on major highways. It turned out to be a wonderful navigational selection. One that does not carry through to states on the east coast. More on that later.
I’ve spent a lot of time towing an 18-foot boat and 20-foot pontoon so am no stranger to something on the bumper. Jumping to a 36-foot box connected in the bed of the truck is different. There are different sounds. Different shifts in weight. Unsettling differences in stopping ability. My senses were on high alert and my inside voice was frequently screaming “what was that?” My driving helper is actually much more adept at verbalizing those thoughts through frequent questions and sudden inhalations. I do my level best to minimize anxiety- most of the time.
We’re now several hundred miles removed from the initial launch and the system seems to be performing as expected. The diesel engine is a workhorse that chugs up the hills and mountains much differently, and calmly than a gasser. The hitch switch seems smoother than what we could have expected otherwise. The open and increased bed space has improved cargo flexibility dramatically.
Life’s highs and lows look different when you choose a life on the road. Back in our sticks-and-bricks home we used to view the potholes in a metaphorical sense. Now I dodge actual potholes. But we managed to figure out all those systems in the house and survived in the pre-internet online-tutorial era just fine. So we’re nearing the end of our stay at this campground and will point further south to keep ahead of snow….watching for potholes along the way.