Day 1 of Our Adventure
Finished up some paperwork at the dealership, went through our RV/trailer walk-through, and off we went…
I will be totally honest, I was fairly terrified as we ventured out onto the road for the first time with this trailer. The trailer is 25 feet in length (30 feet from bumper to hitch), and almost as wide as an entire lane. It’s a house on wheels. I’ve towed boats before, jet skis, that type of thing, this was a whole different level. I was nervous for a variety of reasons…
- How well will the truck pull it?
- How will the truck brake with this much weight behind it?
- What’s turning going to feel like?
- Will anyone get close to me?
This was also my first time driving the truck, as we literally just picked it up from the dealer, too. It made for a fun first drive… that’s for sure.
I drove the side streets from Huntington Beach to Anaheim. Terrified as hell to get on the 22 freeway that ran parallel with me. Slowly but surely, getting a feel for the truck & trailer combination. It’s turning capabilities, how well everything braked, etc.
All went well – better than expected, I’d say. The average driver steers well clear of the “house on wheels.” The 6.0 liter v8 in this Escalade tows like a gem and I couldn’t be happier with the power. The braking was decent, took a bit of getting used to, but good enough for a beginner like me.
After messing around on the side streets for what seemed like hours on end we eventually met up with the family. We gave them a tour of our new home on wheels. We ate In N’ Out and off we went – our first trip “home.”
Our First Trip “Home”
On this night, home would be the Angeles National Forest – Chilao Campground. We intended to take the trailer to Chilao from the get-go due to our familiarity with the forest, as well as it’s proximity to work each day.
I didn’t really consider the difficult, narrow, windy, uphill road that leads to Chilao Campground in the Angeles Forest. It was a solid beginners boot camp at 10 pm at night. After a 40-minute trip on the freeway into the forest, I seemed to gain a lot of confidence with this towing thing. Upon reaching the forest there were only two or three cars that passed us on the way in which was nice. I didn’t have to worry about some drunkard side swiping my trailer on day-1. Staying in the lane was easy. Thankfully, there weren’t any rocks on the highway, so nothing to swerve and avoid.
We arrived at the campground well after 10 pm and selected the first “pull-thru” site we found. Chasity and I were both exhausted from the day. Not so much exhausted from the day, but the weeks, and months leading up to this day. We were absolutely spent. Even on a day like today where we’d love to get things setup, there was no energy to setup, no energy to get things situated at all. We were running on adrenaline and it was time for sleep.
