After driving to the Phoenix area the night before from San Diego, we picked up our new trailer from Antler's RV in Phoenix, AZ. We finally met our salesperson Sheri and the owner David in person. Their technician Mugsy gave us a thorough education on how to use all the various parts and systems in our new trailer. The folks at Antler's gave us a care package of goodies, including Manny the Moose as our mascot, as well. We decided that the Arctic Fox trailer and the Chevy Tahoe needed names, so we christened them Chuck the Truck and Taylor the Trailer. (Comments about our choice of names? Leave a message on our GuestBook!)
Then we hit the road -- drove I-10 south towards Tucson, AZ. Driving Taylor
is weird -- it feels like the parking brake is on, even though it's not.
We drove to an RV park at Picacho, where we spent the night. We unloaded
all the stuff from Chuck and put it into Taylor. There sure isn't much
space in Taylor! While unpacking and fixing dinner, we made a long list
of things we needed to be sure to remember.
We successfully survived our first night in Taylor. Kasie decided she would sleep on the bed with us, which made it a little crowded -- the trailer's double bed is a bit smaller than the queen we had at home! We might have to have a talk with Kasie dog about this. Barney was very unsure of his footing in the trailer -- we need to get some rubber-backed rugs for the floor to give him better footing. He had a good night of sleep on the floor of the trailer, though.
Brian spent a lot of time reading the ton of owner's manuals that came with the trailer. He learned a lot -- enough to know that some of the things Mugsy told us were not exactly correct.
We packed up, went through the checklist, and headed off on I-8 towards El Centro, CA, our next destination. We figured it would be good to drive a while and spend another night on the road, to make sure that we really had a chance to discover any problems that we might have with the new trailer. During the drive through the desert on I-8, we discovered that the scenery did not change nearly as much as the gas gauge did. The saguaros were beautiful and interesting.
Country Living RV Park in El Centro turned out to be mostly permanent
trailers -- a pretty dumpy place. Our site was even rather smelly.
Didn't stay there very long! Just enough time to successfully hook
up the TV for the first time, share a celebratory bottle of champagne,
watch the Steelers lose to the Titans, and sleep. (We brought the TV along
on the shakedown cruise specifically to watch the Steelers playoff game.)
Next morning, we found water dripping out the back of the trailer! After some sleuthing, we discovered that our shower enclosure had a leak. After a short debate about heading back to Phoenix, we decided to spend another night on the road and handle the problem from San Diego. We decided to try a night of "dry camping" (i.e. no hookups) in Anza Borrego State Park. We selected Bow Willow campground because it looked like it might be relatively quiet there.
Driving down Rt. S2, we found the turnoff to Bow Willow campground well
marked. However, it was a sandy, unpaved road! Jacque was pretty nervous
about driving down such a road without knowing where we would end up,
since we aren't yet seasoned trailer navigators. We had images of finding
no space to turn around, forcing us to back the trailer out for miles!
Brian, ever confident that the California State Parks system would have
thoughtfully provided an indication if the road were not trailer-friendly,
turned into the road.
We pulled to the side and walked a little way to see if we could tell if the road were going to be a problem. While we were doing that, a school bus pulled up behind us and couldn't get by. So, we had to do something! We talked to the school bus driver. He had a hand drawn map and was supposed to pick up some people in the Bow Willow campground. We figured if he could get there and back, so could we!
So, the bus followed us in to the campground. What a great choice of campgrounds!
We found a lovely spot and Brian successfully backed the trailer in. Spent
a lovely afternoon enjoying the view of the distant mountains east across
the desert, and an exceptionally quiet night with beautiful stars. Dry camping
turned out to be a piece of cake.
After a great night at Bow Willow, we headed home. The biggest concern would be how Chuck the Truck would handle pulling Taylor the Trailer up and over the steep grades of the I-8 in the Laguna Mountains east of San Diego. It did a great job! Plenty of power to spare. However, it was clear that we needed a better view of traffic behind us, so we will need to get some of those mirror extensions for the truck.
Finally, back home. We arranged to take the trailer to RV Specialists,
a local RV repair place, to handle some minor warrantee repairs (including
the leaky shower), and they were kind enough to let us store our trailer
there for a couple of weeks while we finished up dealing with selling the
house and such. Our Home Owners' Association wouldn't allow us to park
it in front of our house for an extended period.
