5th Wheel Delivery

Wow - what a day I had.!  A friend took me to Gainesville to bring my "new" 5th wheel home.  Since I don't have my truck here yet, we drove over in her truck.    Actually, she made me drive part of the way, to get used to the truck.  I had a feeling I knew what she was up to.

We got there a little early, so we had a quick breakfast/lunch and then met the owner at the storage lot where my 5th wheel was.  A quick walk-around, the previous owner giving me tips on the unit he really didn't want to sell, but his wife was done traveling in it.  Same story I heard while I was cruising by sailboat a few years back - boat for sale - wife wants to go "home".   I was always happy being "home" wherever the boat was.  Obviously, I was not made from the same mold as these wives!

I've never towed anything, so I watched while the previous owner and my friend hitched up the 5th wheel and brought in the landing gear, connected and checked lights, etc.  We got in the truck, waved goodbye to the previous owner, who stood at the gate gazing sadly at us going down the road.  I felt bad for him, I had the same feeling when I sold some (most) of my boats. 

Not only have I never towed anything myself, I don't think I've ever been in a truck or car hauling anything larger than a small boat or utility trailer.  I was a bit nervous at the noises it was making and kept looking back to be sure everything was OK.  In a short time, I got used to the fact that it was following us as it should - after all, hundreds of people do this daily, things would be fine.

We drove out of town and the road home was a nice road mostly through less populated areas, not much traffic,  a few curvy parts, a few little hilly parts  - hills in Florida can be 25' and we're impressed.  In a short time, my friend told me it was my turn to drive and my anxiety level went up a few notches.   She found a shaded area to pull over and we switched places.  I adjusted the seat, put on the seatbelt, took a big breath, looked in the mirrors to see what I could see.  I slowly took off and after a while, I realized that towing wasn't that hard - at least on a nice road with little traffic!  Oops, someone passed me and I noticed that I had a little parade going.  OK, I had adjusted to 40 MPH, I added a little more speed and finally got up to the speed limit.  0-60 in about 8 minutes!

We drove on and we came to a more populated area where I had to make a few turns and get into a parking lot.  Thank goodness I had a general idea of how it should be done, plus I had input from the passenger seat veteran.  I had been reading lots of information about towing, and You Tube is wonderful for instructional videos about anything you need to know about.   Really, I'm serious - I had watched videos about driving an RV, making the wide turns, backing up and all sorts of things - even dumping the black tank, which I'm sure will be another story later.

We pulled into the parking lot, made a loop through and parked way out in the lot, taking up numerous spaces - I can see I'm going to love huge parking lots.  My time at the wheel was done, I would get in my car and my friend would follow me to my home town.  What a sense of relief when I turned off that truck motor!.  My first time towing was over, but there's still a huge learning curve - on towing as well as everything else that goes with this lifestyle. 

There is a lot of knowledge out there about RVing and the more I read and talk to other RVers, the more I'll learn.  They're friendly and helpful, very much like the cruisers in the Caribbean that I had known and learned from, and in some cases they learned from me.   Maybe someday, some new RVer might learn something from me.