It’s not all unicorns and rainbows out here on the road. We are learning the mechanics of a whole new way of living, and sorting out what we want our life together to look like. Perhaps one of the most nerve-wracking things we needed to learn first was how to safely hitch and unhitch the 37-foot RV from the Ford F350. After a few tries, we settled into roles based on our respective strengths—we’ve now done it six times and have not lost our cool with each other!
We quickly ran into a large challenge (better to get it over with early, right?). This RV has three “slides”—sections of the kitchen, living/dining room, and bedroom slide out to essentially double the width of our living space when we’re parked at a campground.
As we left our stunning campground in Lancaster, PA, we realized that the bedroom slide was making an unfamiliar banging sound. When we arrived at our next location in Harpursville, NY, we realized that the slide was stuck in—which meant we could not access anything in the bedroom (including most of our clothes). After spending the night in the pullout queen bed with no sheets (also trapped in the bedroom), we visited a local dealership to see if they could diagnose the problem. The dealership was clearly incredibly busy, but they spent over 4 hours trying to figure out what was wrong, easing the slide open so that we could scramble in and get some clothes and sheets, and closing it again so that we could continue to travel safely. They were so helpful, supportive, and communicative—and apologized when they charged us $169.00 for the service call (yes, the decimal point is indeed in the correct place). We’re still sleeping on the guest bed, and may find ourselves driving to the Alliance factory in Elkhart, IN, for a new slide… but we have sheets, clothes, and a little more faith in our fellow humans.
Happy update: The (also incredibly helpful) rep from Alliance connected us with a mobile RV repair tech in Nashville. We changed up our route a bit (Ashville, NC, we’ll get you on the way back around!), and planned to sit in Nashville until the repair was complete. On a steamy 97-degree day, our new best friend Dennis completed the repair, and we’ve got full use of our entire space again!