It’s today! We start out trip today, super excited.
Carol and I are starting our final touches to be ready to go, just need to take some more stuff to the truck, and move a few heavy items from the trailer to the truck, and go.
We were able to get everything loaded up, and a tad redistributed into the truck, and we were out on the road around 10:30am. Really good timing for me for our first day. I had all tires checked on Sunday, all lug nuts and other bolts tightened, checked the undercarriage for any signs, checked hitch, etc all systems were checked. As we were almost ready in the house, I hitched up, backed around by myself in the circle, reversed back in near the house, put the weight distribution bars in, kids and Carol came in and we were ready to roll. TPMS was set. GPS was set with our proper length, height, width and weight, and routed us the southern most way, near Madison, through Wisconsin Dells. Ride was easy with the truck, no sway, no trailer moving the truck around at any time, even when big trucks would drive by, or on the other side of the road. Only thing that still happens is the wave on some roads that have concrete blocks and expansion joints.
We stopped on the road at one point as Bella wanted to pee, so I just found an ok spot and pulled over. That was not a great idea, they used the bathroom fine, but as some trucks went by, the trailer got pushed and sucked in like crazy, it looked like it moved almost a foot around the top on each side from the air impact. We decided to not do that again, it’s way too dangerous.
Weather was great until we got close to Madison and Dells, then it closed up, and rain came. Lots of rain. It was pouring so much I had to slow down to 35-40mph, but it didn’t feel dangerous at any point. Oh, and early in the trip, the wind was 12-13mph, which with the Tahoe would have pushed the truck all over, but with the RAM it was not even felt. The heavy rain subdued soon, then we had slow rain and within 30 mins no rain. The truck came with rainX wipes, and I think it must have had rainX sprayed on the windshield because I almost didn’t need the wipes. That was great, and I have to make sure to keep using it, it made a huge difference for safety.
About 90 mins from our final destination, I stopped at a rest stop, so I could stretch my legs and use the bathroom. So, it’s great that I had some fresh water in the tank, so we can do that, and the rest stops are great. Some people even had chairs out, and were just sitting there relaxing. We will for sure use those more often.
We got to La Crosse around 3pm, and it was interesting to cross town with the trailer behind. Easy, no issues, but interesting. When we got to the campground we were in awe, it’s a beautiful area, with the Mississippi River right there. Our site does not have sewer, but it’s just for a day, so no problem. We backed in, and right behind us is the river, very pretty view. We backed in, took a few times going back and forth, mainly from my lack of experience. Got leveled quick, then connected to water and electric. Carol kept getting setup and started dinner, and I had a Guidepoint consulting call at 4. Once I was off my call, we sat back there for a bit, looking at the river and chatting. I got the fishing pole for Bia, but there were too many rocks at the bottom and the lure got stuck on her first try, so we stopped right away. We were for a quick walk, kids were on their bikes. This campground is basically that, a bunch of sites on the banks of the river here in La Crosse, very cool view, great for motorsports. Then we got back, Carol finished dinner, we had dinner, then went outside to watch the sunset.
The girls wanted to watch from the roof of the trailer, so I got the telescopic ladder and setup next to the slide out and they went up there, while Carol and I watched from the side of the river. Sun was setting behind us, so on the other side of the river. That was a nice treat right away. It was cool how the girls were into that, and even wanting to go up in the roof. I hope they didn’t mess the liner up there, that’d be bad. After that, we all got in and cleaned up, the girls logged in to their google classroom, and emails to make sure they were ready for their first day of school tomorrow. They played in their computers a bit, and I got caught up with emails, while Carol washed the dishes. We all showered then, and went to bed early. It was a great first day of our trip.
Here’s a link to the video Carol made of our first day: https://carolstefano.com/our-rv-road-trip-across-the-usa/