Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - My first ttrip in my new RV

Good day. My name is Art Hussey. I have been on the Europan forum for several years as most of my recent travel has been to Europe. I cannot do so at this time due to medical reasons. I recently bought a new RV (a 40 ft Mandalay). And this is my first (of many to come) trip reports.

My first trip in my new RV.

Well, it was an interesting trip. I rode over to Nevada leaving about 3:00 pm on Friday. We arrived around 8:30, met up with a notary and officially delivered my RV to me. I then started out to Oregon about 9:00 pm, never having driven it before. It is not like a car that you test drive. An RV is made up of many components. The chassis is by Freightliner, who makes large trucks, .the engine is a Caterpillar, the transmission is a six speed automatic Allison .The TV’s are sonys as is the entertainment system. The microwave/convection is Sharp. The reading list of all of the instructions is about 14 inches thick. I spent about 3 hours last Tuesday going through the RV with a technician from the Seller to get some of the basics.

I drove until my eyelids started feeling heavy than pulled over at the next rest stop and slept for a few hours. This is how I basically got to Oregon. Drive until sleepy than take a nap. My first fuel fill up was a bit of a shock, although I knew it was coming. One hundred and sixty two dollars.

I tried to set my GPS system but it could not find Portland. Found out later that I was in a dead spot and it could not connect with a satellite.

I was in touch with AirForceChief a couple of times and she looked up a number for a RV park for me. I called them and got directions to their site. I got there lSunday evening and checked in.

Monday morning I called the DMV and found out that I had been given only part of the story when I called them earlier from LA. You need much more than an address, which two of my friends had offered me to use. You need a utility bill and some other information that is impossible to get unless you really live there. The other alternative is to stay in a campground for six months. So I guess that as soon as my house sells and closes escrow I’ll be moving to Portland for a while. This is OK as there is quite a bit to see in Oregon and Washington as well as Vancouver. Spoke with AirForceChief that if she is not working all of the time, we could take some day trips together as she has not seen much there either.

Since my RV is not and can not be registered for a while, I called a couple of storage places and found a secured one not to far from the RV park.

I got up Tuesday morning, after a nice meeting and dinner with a friend Monday evening and got ready to take my rig to storage. I had set three of the slide outs and after unhooking the electricity started to close them up. One of the ones in the bedroom moved about 6 inches and stopped dead. The others would not move. The generator would not slide out. The leveling jacks would not retract. I was dead in the water.
I called Four Winds who make the Mandalay and went through several things with them. No help. They suggested that I locate some RV service people and they would work with them to assist me.

I decided that since I was stuck there (having already changed my flight to Wednesday) I might as well plug in again. I plugged in, went back inside and pressed the toggle switch to connect, tried one of the slides again and LO AND BEHOLD it worked. I had not realized that I had disconnected the batteries and they had run down. A bit of stupidity on my part. As I wrote, I have a lot of reading to do.

I did figure out the GPS system (I thought), was able to enter the address of the RV storage and thought I was ready to go.

Wednesday morning I woke up and got ready to go, slid in the sides of the RV, checked out and headed out. The GPS system had me headed in the absolute wrong direction but I did not catch on for a little. (It seems that not only do you have to enter the address in an address book but point to is as a destination). I got on the phone to Gary (By this time we were on a first name basis), got turned around (not always easy in a 40 ft rig) and finally got there. He had already called a taxi and led me to where I could park my rig. Just as I was parking as the Taxi drove up. Got my stuff and jumped in (not really) and we hightailed it to the Airport. I got there late and was even later as they picked me to do the full security deal. I got to the gate 5 minutes be fore departure time but it was late and had not started boarding yet. I was taken on board in a wheelchair and was the third person on. My RV salesman picked me up at Ontario airport and took me back to my truck parked at the sales office.