Maiden Voyage, Day 2: Meeting Buggy
A large sign greeted us in the lobby, with chalk-written welcomes for Anthony and fellow new ATC owner, Tim. Not much could prepare us for the initial sight of our brand new, crisp white travel trailer, after envisioning for months what it would actually be like to see it for the first time. We’ll admit that, after hearing one too many horror stories and also not having the best luck with taking delivery of big purchases (Nicole has now had two harp deliveries in a row not come to fruition), that we half-expected to see a trailer that was the wrong color, or had decals that we specifically paid to have removed. But, to our delight, our trailer was exactly what we had purchased. We already had his name picked out, Buggy, to coincide with our truck’s name, Clyde (short for Clydesdale). Now we have a horse and buggy!
We did our due diligence during the walkthrough, taking ample notes and video so that we had all the resources we needed to learn about our new purchase. Thankfully, only a few minor fixes needed to be made, and although those and connecting the hitch took several hours, we had plenty of time before driving the short distance to our campground for the night.
We decided to stay at Tanglewood RV Park, about a 20-minute drive from the dealer. This was the only stay we booked ahead of time. We thought it was wise to do our initial shakedown nearby, on the chance we needed to return to the dealer for anymore repairs. True to everything we’ve heard about the RV community, we were greeted by a warm welcome and congratulations for completing our first RV purchase and towing experience. We had booked the campground’s only pull-through site, so that we could focus on setting up camp and checking all the remaining details of the rig. Backing into sites could come later.
It was a whirlwind stay, and normally we wouldn’t do an entire set-up just for one night, but we dove right in for learning purposes. We unhitched, leveled, and connected our 50 amp electric and water (complete with our Clear2o filter and dirtguard). (We waited until the next morning to hook up our sewer connection, when we did a test dump with clean grey water, ensuring there were no leaks in our sewer hose). Then we settled in for a night of combing through the rig, testing all latches, electrical outlets, and more. Soon we were exhausted from our big day, and we poured ourselves into bed for our first sleep in our new home-on-wheels.
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Nicole Anderson