Preparing to Travel!

Lots of preparation went into the move to Texas. I'm not sure if any of you have every pulled a 40ft camper with a pickup truck but it is an adventure in itself. So Jeff ordered sway bars which help to keep the camper from swaying side to side on the interstate possibly preventing it from flipping over on the highway. This is our home so most all of our belongings are in it. So we defiantly do not want it flipping over!! So he ordered these sway bars, a hitch for my SUV (to pull the boat) a huge surge protector for the RV, and some kind of block things that are supposed to support the RV while parked taking pressure off the tires. He did a lot of research on all of this stuff! So the sway bar comes in about 4 days before we are leaving out for Texas and it is missing half of the pieces. So he calls and they are going to ship him a brand new one. So we are waiting on this to come in before we can leave. The hitch comes in and he gets that put on my car fine no problems. The block things we get out of the box and they are heavy like 50lbs a piece and there are 4. Well they can only hold up to 5000 lbs. a set and our RV is like 14000 lbs. So there was no way they were going to work. He looked online for the weight maximum but could not find it. So these had to be sent back.  The surge protector also came in he hooked it up, and there was some kind of problem with the amps going into the RV something about it could fry our TV's and such. That's his area not mine. So he got that corrected. We have everything packed away, checked out the storage unit made sure there is nothing else that we need from there. We are ready to leave except we have to wait on the sway bar to come in. We hoped it would come in early Thursday morning, we spent the day with family visiting and such. Noon comes around and no sway bar. Finally about 5pm the sway bar comes in, and the box looks like it had been demolished. It was barely being held together. We held our breath as we unloaded the parts because without this it was going to be a very long trip to Texas! Luckily for us all the parts were there. So we went home got it put on with the help of family and neighbors, so we all went to dinner and relax before we headed out Friday morning. So here is where the fun comes in! We packed everything into the truck and car, have the dogs backseat area all ready. Almost done with everything, but we have to pull the slide outs in on the RV. Lessons learned!! Always make sure that your slide out is not near anything! Our was close to the meter box which was sticking out some because of the surge protector. So our slide out caught the box and almost took the back wall off the RV.  Luckily Jeff and his dad are a jack of all trades and they were able to fix it to were it was all back together. This still has to be fixed a little better though. So we can only laugh because there is no one to blame but ourselves. So we get on the road me in the SUV with a boat behind and 2 dogs in the backseat  and him in the truck with the 40ft camper. About 4 hours into the trip I noticed that there was a bubble on the roof of the RV that had not been there previously. I watch it and call to tell him, of course we have no ladder and no way to get up there, so we continue driving. We get a little further up the road and the bubble is now all the way across the roof, luckily it doesn't go back any further than the front. So we just watch it. So than later Jeff calls me and says ok add a new windshield to this trip, he gotten a rock peck that was already spreading. I talked to my mom not sure if this was God saying hey you were not supposed to go to Texas or the devil trying to keep us from God's will. However after discussion with mom God is not going to send bad things to us and all the doors and timing aligned up just right. So I can only assume its the devil attacking us. Oh yea and you cant get a 40ft RV into restaurant parking lots so pretty much we went all day on just breakfast (Jeff was thankful he wasn't in the car with me.) So its about 9pm now and we are close to our RV Park, GPS tells me turn in 0.5ft well the speed limit is 70MPH, I'm slowing down with the boat attached to me and the truck & RV behind me. Well we miss the turn and pull down some little bitty dirt road. I tell Jeff I'm sorry I think I really messed us up. He was such a trooper he got in my car and turned the care and boat around and than like an expert backed that RV up on a little dirt road, and than we finally turned into the right place. So we get here an have to hook up the electricity and that surge protector, along with all of our water hoses, put the RV up on blocks and get it level! We are exhausted!! So the next morning he had talked to an RV repair place who cant come to us so we have to take it to them which is about 45 minutes away! So we have to disconnect all the water hose, electricity, put our slides back in, raise the jacks and hook it back to the truck! We drive over and they tell us what the problem is and that it will take 3-4 day to fix it. Now remember we are in Texas with all of our stuff in the RV and no family here, so 3-4 days with no RV isn't really good. But later talking to neighbors we realized there are mobile people who will come out and do the repairs at your site so that is now the plan, I have a call into them and am waiting on a response. So once we get back from the repair place we have to redo the electricity, the water pipes, and put the slides out making sure they are clear of everything! So than we go to put our tv's back up, and realize that the smaller one that we bought specifically for the RV somehow got cracked! So we had to buy another TV!! So than last but not least of our adventures, I was out walking Drake, Jeff came outside and left Sadie inside, well she didn't like that and she hit the lock on the front door of the RV and locked us out!! Luckily Jeff's truck was unlocked and he had some tools to pry into the door and get in. But the first couple of days here were full of interesting things. Things seem to be calming down now! Well I just got a call from the mobile RV repair and he said since we already started a warranty claim with the RV place we probably really needed to let them handle it. :(