Taking a Test Drive

We are trying out our new Class A RV.  We have 5 days planned at Lake Havasu City, Arizona.  We will be staying at an RV park on the island, crossing over the London Bridge.  All week I have been really edgy.  I want to blame in on receiving my 2nd Covid-19 vaccine, but I actually had no major or even minor side effects other than my arm was sore for a few days at the injection site.  I think I was nervous how this big giant RV would respond on the road and then on an island with only one way on and one way off!

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Dennis is all smiles today.  This is his dream.  He is the king of all road trips, and now this makes him the Emperor of all road trips.  When he was signing the papers for this RV, he looked up and me, smiled and said, “I worked all my life for the opportunity.”  He was beaming.

While Dennis was spending the week getting acquainted with his vehicle, I was preparing in my head logistics for living in a house on wheels for a week.  This RV is huge (32 feet long).  I had a home once that was only 33 feet long.  I raised four sons in that little bitty house.  It’s small for a house, but to me huge for a vehicle!  We sit up high in the driver’s and passenger’s seat.  The windshield is curved 10 feet wide!  The side windows at our seats are about 4 feet wide.  We can see forever sitting in the seats.

It’s odd to pack for a trip and not pack a suitcase.  Dennis brought the RV to our front door, and we carried our clothes on hangers to hang in the closet.  I handed Dennis a laundry basket of clothes that he took in and placed in the bedroom drawers.  Because we cannot open our slides on our small street, I cannot access the drawers in the bedroom.  The bed slides in all the way to opposite wall when the slides are in.  I will organize the drawers once we arrive at our destination.

We are going without a tow vehicle.  It will be a couple weeks before we can tow a car.  Apparently, something has to be welded to the RV, and something welded or done to the car.  We have a 2021 Jeep Cherokee that the transmission can be disconnected.  That way the car can be towed on all four wheels, and it does not harm the engine, nor will it clock miles.  The only thing it might do over time is wear out the tires!  

We are going to Lake Havasu.  It sounded like a good idea.  Dennis made reservations at the only RV park that had any openings left.  After nonrefundable reservations were made, several people teased us about going to the favorite Arizona destination for college spring break.  Great!  I did my research, after the fact, trying to find if the schools would be on break while we were there.  Much to my pleasure, Arizona state run schools canceled spring break this year due to Covid!  Yay!  We are also going to be there from Monday until Saturday morning, so hopefully, there won’t be as much partying going on.

Then I read one of my favorite bloggers.  She and her husband are full time RVer’s.  She was writing about some of their locations the past few weeks around Arizona.  I found out that the beaches at Lake Havasu seem to be “clothing optional.”  This apparently isn’t only the college kids with this lifestyle, so we don’t know what to expect.  This should be an interesting adventure to say the least!

We traveled west on the I-10 (Pearl Harbor Memorial Highway, the sign stated).  We are in search of a rest area to pull over and have lunch.  I love that we are self contained.  I loved it with our little travel trailer, but this is so much nicer.  I don’t have to put shoes on at all.  We are just a little rolling house on wheels!  As we left the I-10 and turned north, the landscape changed.  It was mountainy, hilly, rocky — not sure how to describe it.  I am always amazed at the landscapes in Arizona.  It changes so much depending on the direction one is going.  Lake Havasu sits on the Colorado River.  I am amazed at how blue the water is.  It is just beautiful.

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Update:  We have arrived at our destination.  The first problem was the next door RV had their boat parked in our slot.  They moved their boat over one more slot, and we pulled into our space with the front windshield (our largest window in this home on wheels) facing this beautiful giant lake.  No complaints on that.  We experience no one without their clothes, and it was actually quiet in the evening.  Fingers crossed that it will remain that way.

When we arrived I was tired and hungry.  All I wanted to do was whip up some eggs and toast and have breakfast for dinner—one of my favorite meals.  That is when I discovered that we did not take everything out of the home refrigerator—I had no butter and no eggs.  How did I miss that?  Dennis walked up to the little store in the campground to purchase eggs and butter.  A while later he returned (in a car)!  The store was closed so he took an Uber to the local Safeway and picked up some extra supplies.

Lesson #1:  Have a checklist of all food you want to bring.  It’s easy to miss something when you are tired and stressed.

This is such a comfortable RV.  Now that the three slides are open, we have plenty of room to move around.  The shower is spacious enough, and I love that the room with the sink and toilet don’t make one feel cramped (haha, not intended to be a joke).

I am learning lessons about storage.  We have one cabinet that is directly behind the sink.  When the slides are in going down the road, there is not access to that cabinet.  

Lesson #2:  Do not put anything in that cabinet that you want access to while traveling.  It will only be accessible when parked and slides are open.  

I am amazed of all the storage space.  Since we are on the road for only a week, most of the drawers in the bedroom are empty.  We both thought that for long trips, some of these drawers and cabinets may be overflow space to put food packages.  Of course, if we go for a long period of time, we may need most of that space for clothes.  I am also watching videos of how to best pack an RV. 

This will be an interesting adventure.  Already our wifi unit on our roof has quit working.  Fortunately, we have excellent cell service here, and I can use the hotspot on my phone for my computer to upload this blog. 

Stay tuned.  I’ll be writing more on how this RV life is.  Wish us luck!