When you buy a new RV or when you are new to RVing (or both, like us), at some point, you’re going to have to take that new RV out and try to make heads or tails of all the knobs and dials and hoses. So many hoses.
This first trip has a fancy name in the RV community: a “shakedown trip.”
Well, we finally had a chance to do our shakedown trip.
We. Are. Shook
The idea is that you go somewhere not far from civilization, hook everything up, and make sure you know how everything works. You also find out what you still need, what you don’t need, and how deep your ignorance about operating an RV truly is.
We made soooo many mistakes. And there was so much swearing. Our poor, traumatized children were witness to it all. And that was just hooking up the RV and trying to drive to the park.
It started out badly. We had hooked the RV up a few times for practice, and we thought we knew what we were doing. Nope, we did not.
As I guided Trav back toward the hitch, and the hitch wasn’t hitching, we realized we had forgotten to open the hitch clamp. And so we were repeatedly just banging the truck into the RV. Over and over. Like a pair of idiots. It was only good luck that we didn’t do any real damage to the hitch or the truck.
Once we realized our mistake, we got the beast hitched and loaded, and off we went, immediately cutting someone off. And it was at that moment, as the angry motorist zipped around us and wildly flipped us off, I realized I left all of the girls' precious stuffies and pillows at home. The ones they can’t sleep without. Shite.
As I was thinking about this, Trav pointed out a piece of loose carpet flapping about in the back of the truck. “Oops,” he said as it flew out of the back and into the nether, never to be seen again.
Despite all of that, we managed to get to the RV park unscathed. The first thing we saw when we pulled into the RV park was a massive Trump 2024 flag waving in the breeze. My unapologetically liberal heart sank.
“Well, I guess these are our people now, Trav.” He sighed.
When we checked in, I made sure to emphasize to the park hosts that this was our shakedown trip so that they would be sure to give us lots of space and grace. They were incredibly kind and offered to lead us down to our site.
Trav slowly followed the fella in his golf cart, and all was going quite well until the guy suddenly stopped, started waving his arms, and jumped off his seat. He came running to our window.
“You ever driven one of these before?”
“Nope,” Trav said. “First time out.”
The campground guy shook his head, as if we were a couple of rubes, which we were. “Well, back up and try again.”
He pointed above us. Trav had almost hit a tree and sheered off the top of the rig.
So we went back and forth until we were angled properly to pull in without damage. Poor Trav had to peel his fingers one by one off the wheel once he finally had us parked.
I must say, Trav is a pro—he is. I would have had that thing in a thousand pieces. I am so impressed with how calmly he navigates that beast. Have I mentioned that, between the truck and the RV, we are SIXTY FEET in length down the highway? Yeah. So, kudos to Trav.
The campground fella asked us about our intentions with our new rig. I proudly told him we would travel around the country for a year, visiting our National Parks.
“I hate National Parks,” he said.
I just stared at him. I didn’t even understand what he was saying. Hate National Parks? Just…wha? How does one even respond to a remark like this? So I didn’t.
With that, the fella wished us luck and sped off in his golf cart, and now it was just us and the beast—I mean the Big Fun RV. And the rain. So much rain.
Not only did we have to do the shakedown in the rain most of the weekend, we also had to de-winterize and sanitize everything, and for folks like us who don’t know a sewer hose from a buttered baguette, this was a chore. But hey, at least we had researched! And we had done a walkthrough “class” with an RV tech. Which I had recorded on video on our iPad!
Which I had also left at home!
So there was a lot of Googling and YouTubing and trying to read a paper user manual in the rain because I swear all the research evaporated right out of our brains as soon as we were standing there looking at all those knobs and hoses.
We somehow managed to get everything unhooked and leveled, which was the first step. Success!
Then we moved on to the electric. We ran the cord from the back of the rig to the power station. And holy buckets, what in the shit? It was too short! By like a foot! Argh. We had two choices: hitch the whole ungodly rig back up and pull forward a foot, or run to the store and get an extension cord. Neither of those options sounded good.
So, instead, we opted for a third choice: swear at each other.
Then we remembered that we owned a surge protector—a big fancy surge protector that I had insisted we invest in. It was exactly a foot long. What sheer dumb luck! Soon, we had electricity! Okay! We were humming right along.
Now, to de-winterize.
This process meant hooking a hose to the city water, filling our clean water tank, and then going inside and opening all the taps to clean out the antifreeze in the lines.
Except we had no idea how to do that without the handy iPad recording I had left at home.
So we waded through YouTube videos and the rain-dampened manual until we got the fancy Nautilus water system hooked up. In the process, we managed to flood our in-line hot water system (fail) and found out our clean water tank was open when water flooded all over the ground (fail), but we finally got it going (success).
Once we heard the water tank filling up, we felt pretty smug and happy with ourselves out there in the rain. We high-fived each other. Now, we had to go inside and open the taps.
I went inside. The girls were on the couch on their iPads, oblivious to the sound of water flowing. Water flowing? That wasn’t right. I ran to the bathroom. The whole sink was full. Water flowed out of the sink and onto the floor, down the hallway, into our bedroom and into the closet. I started hollering for Trav. The sink taps had been open, and the plug was somehow closed.
We had flooded our damn RV! Massive, massive fail.
God, we were a clown show.
I managed to hold back the tears as we mopped up the mess. And we were only halfway through. We still had to sanitize the tanks, which involved letting them sit with bleach water for hours. We would have no running water until the next day. On the bright side, once we got running water, I would get a chance to test out our washing machine because I had a shit ton of wet towels to wash now.
At one point in the mayhem of hooking up hoses and cords and twisting knobs and pushing buttons, I realized the girls were no longer in the RV. I looked around and saw them off in the distance, at the pathetic swingset that passed for a playground, sitting all forlorn on the swings in the rain. I realized they would rather sit there in the cold mist on that rusty swingset than be around their stressed-out, swearing parents, and my heart broke a little.
This sucked. A lot.
We managed to pull it together enough to make dinner, and I busted out a new puzzle for them to put together, hoping to salvage the evening. But bedtime was a disaster. There were no stuffies or pillows, and a thunderstorm was raging inches above their heads where they tried to sleep in the loft. Aela pointed out all the bugs trapped in the skylight above Eva’s face, and she began to sob that she wanted to go home.
I stood in the narrow hallway holding Eva’s hand through the loft rails, trying to reassure her that it would all be okay, leaning my head against the paper-thin wall of the RV, listening to the rain on the roof, and that’s when the tears did come. Quietly, mind you. I didn’t want my kids to see me cry. But I felt so defeated right then.
You see, I’ve spent a good chunk of my life struggling. I spent a good portion of my childhood with a single mom. A mom who did an amazing job of working against the odds, to be sure, but working against the odds nonetheless. I spent most of my young adulthood as a single mom myself. Going to college while raising a daughter alone, always working two jobs. And during the short time of my young adulthood that I was not a single mom, I was in an abusive marriage. I was always riding the struggle bus. My road was never smooth. I worked so hard for so long to finally get to a place where I had a pretty easy life. Every good thing in my life was hard won. Everything.
But finally, my struggle bus pulled into the Easy Street bus station, and I disembarked and took a load off. It may have taken me 50 years, but I have a nice house, a great husband, and a great career. I have an amazing grown daughter; my younger girls are in a great school.
And now that things are coasting along, I am deliberately choosing hard.
What. Was. I. Doing?
I stood there with my forehead pressed against the wall, thinking about all the money we had just spent and all the changes we were about to make. I am about to put my career on hold. And I may be unable to pick up my career where I left off when we return. And for what? This mess? For a life of standing in the rain bitching at each other while my kids sit all morose on a dilapidated swingset in an RV park full of people who fly Trump flags and who hate National Parks?
I had a moment there.
But I felt my daughter squeeze my hand.
And I realized that, yes, I was choosing this. But it wasn’t a struggle bus. Not like the one I had ridden my whole life. It never would be like it had been. I mean, it was bound to be hard sometimes, for sure. There would be challenges. But it would not be “having to put something back after the grocery bill was rung up because we went over the budget” hard or “not being able to pay the rent on time this month unless I pick up extra shifts” hard or “having to tiptoe around my husband so he wouldn’t explode in anger” hard.
No, I had to remind myself I was choosing silly-difficult. I was choosing “not knowing how to hook up a sewer hose the right way” hard. I was choosing “camping next to a nutball who dislikes National Parks” hard. I was choosing “accidentally parking too far away from the outlet” hard.
And none of that would actually be hard because I have a loving, patient husband beside me who has a fantastic sense of humor and a sense of adventure and who loves me no matter what kind of stupid mistakes we make together. Who loves me because we make stupid mistakes together. Because we aren’t afraid of making mistakes together. And laughing together. And taking risks together.
It was going to be grand.
It is going to be grand.
I pulled myself together. “Come on,” I told the girls. “Let’s test out the pull-out couch. We need to try all the things. Sleep with me tonight.” They got excited, climbed down from the loft, and helped me convert the living room couch into a bed.
It sucked. We would need to buy a foam topper for that.
After they fell asleep in the middle of the night, I crept in, curled up next to Trav, and slept in my RV bed for the first time.
And I knew it would all be okay.
The next morning, the guy running the place came around to make sure we were still alive. He helped us pull our heads out of our asses and get ourselves back on track. He listed out all of the pieces and parts we would need to invest in (extension cord, obviously) and things that would be nice to have. And he may be a National Park hater, which I still can’t reconcile, but deep down, he was a decent guy. He’s a good reminder that I will have to work on my biases as we go along on this trip.
Anyway, off to Fleet Farm, we went.
By the evening of day two, we were fully functional. (Well, our RV was. Can’t say that we were.)
We finally got to pop open a beer to celebrate.
We grilled some burgers and had our first dinner outside—a big success. The girls also completed their puzzle just in time to pack up and leave.
So, the "shakedown trip" is in the books.
We realized that we need a lot more practice before we leave—so much more practice. But it can only get easier from here, I hope.
And I know that no matter what happens or how shaken up I get, I won't be getting back on the struggle bus. As long as Trav is by my side, even if it gets a little sweary at times, it will always be an adventure.
(Our poor, poor, traumatized kids. We are going to need a lot more puzzles.)
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