“Life is nothing without a little chaos to make it interesting.”
― Demon in My View
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As I was looking through archived photos and thinking about full-time RV’ing and campgrounds, I thought I’d give a little insight into what it was like to arrive and set up at a campground with a large 40′ 5th wheel trailer and a 21′ dually truck.
We always did a lot of preplanning about our waypoints. Bonnie usually kept reservations made for at least six months out, and we’d try to keep the distance between them reasonable for one day, usually not more than 200 miles, although we did do some longer ones. One of the general rules for full-time “road warriors” is that you follow the weather, north in summer and south in winter. With the recent chaotic weather patterns, I don’t know how well that’s working for travelers these days.
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The evening before a move, I’d take our Garmin RV GPS and compare its suggested route to our copy of a long-haul truckers map, Google Maps and sometimes even Google Earth. I’d confirm bridge clearance heights (our 5th wheel was about 12′ tall) and then focus on the approach and layout of the next RV park. Turning into an “Exit Only” or a dead-end street was something I was especially interested in avoiding, although I did have to back out of a few situations.
Once arriving at the next park, we were assigned our site, and then an intense hour+ of ‘fun’ would begin. We always hoped for and tried to reserve a long pull-through site. One where you pull in one end and leave out of the other, and one that accommodates our nearly 70′ disconnected trailer and truck length. Sadly, those ‘perfect sites’ were often in the minority or had already been reserved by others.
Many of our sites were back-in sites requiring Bonnie to be my spotter. Sometimes you could back straight, but often, it required a sharp right or left turn from the separating traffic lane into the site. This was often a get out of the truck to look, then back-up a few feet and repeat cycle, especially on left-hand turns, which were blind to the driver. On the bright side, there were times when others would come over from neighboring RV sites and help spot or offer advice. While not all advice might be good or welcome, on several occasions, they were retired truckers who made the complicated easy.
Positioning of our 5th wheel in the site had to consider the location of the utility connections and accommodate the trailer slideouts when our 8′ wide trailer became 14′ at specific locations.
Even getting to or from a site within a park could be a challenge created by narrow lanes, low tree branches, or inconsiderate vehicle parking. And at least once, I had to back out of a pull-through site because a pull-out exit was blocked or dangerous.
Once parked and disconnected from the truck, the trailer leveling process began. Our 5th wheel had an auto-leveling function using six hydraulic ram legs, which worked well as long as the site ground wasn’t too uneven. These hydraulic legs could lift the trailer wheels clear of the ground if needed, which is not usually the best situation for stability. In those cases, we often pull the low-side tires upon leveling boards before disconnecting. Manual leveling with the hydraulics could also be performed, and even on automatic, some manual adjustment was often made.
Once level, the electrical connection was made, and the slides extended. If it was warm, the A/C’s were turned on to cool what was usually a hot interior after a full day in the sun. At this point, Bonnie would begin working inside to check everything was in its place and functional while I continued the connections outside. I’d connect water and sewer before parking the truck, turn on the propane gas and usually take Maggie for a walk to explore the park. On our return, Bonnie would fix an evening meal after a tiring day on the road.
While this sounds complicated, it soon became routine and didn’t take long. Bonnie and I worked well together, which we observed from other RV’ers wasn’t always the case. 😉
There was a whole reverse process to packing up and leaving. But in between, the living was easy.
Wow! Thank you for sharing the experience of your full time RV life. It sounds like you two did work it out well. I’d forgotten your fifth wheel was 40 feet. That’s huge in my books. I do remember the images you shared. It was beautiful. As close to a home as you could get. One thing you didn’t mention was how long it all took.
I have a couple of friends who retired 2 years ago and are living as you did. The only exception is working the summers and one winter, so far. They love it, so far. It has its limits and in Duane’s words, it’s a blast! At the present time they are working about 20 hours a week and exploring the rest of the week. HIs wife is the Planning and Reservation Specialist. They also seem to work well together. They’ve worked out their roles. They are in a 35 foot Class A (Bella) and have a toad, a Honda Fit (Toby) for exploring.
The fifth wheel seemed even larger than it was in certain situations, such as trying to back into a tight ninety-degree site or when going through Atlanta or Houston. LOL. We also did a couple of spells of camp work. It’s a great way to lower your cost. After everything became routine, the above setup process could be done in 45 minutes or less when everything went well and the site utility connections were in good shape.
With a do-over and money not being a factor, which it always is, we would go the diesel Class A, or Super Class C, with a toad route. But those days have sadly passed for us.