While we had spent one night in the trailer in our driveway, just to get used to it, we decided that our first trip with the new trailer was going to be over a familiar route. We made the trip across the Southern Tier of New York and up and over the Green Mountains, destined for my parents’ house in New Hampshire.
The trip normally takes 12-14 hours (depending on how often we need to stop, and how many “touristy” things that we do along the way). I knew it would be longer with towing and wanted to leave time for the unexpected.
I was looking at rest areas along the way, and realized that I would be taking a chance to try to spend the night at any rest areas along New York highways. From what I could find before our trip (which was admittedly a bit rushed), it appeared to me that overnight parking was prohibited at all New York rest areas. I did not want to risk a midnight knock on the door by one of New York’s finest, telling us to move on with no alternate plans.
I found a few websites that listed RV-friendly businesses, and had a couple of Wal-Marts in mind in case we could not find anything else (as a note, it is still best to get permission from the manager to park at a business, do not just assume it is okay. They may request that you park in a certain area so as not to interfere with traffic or deliveries).
Boondockers Welcome was the most useful website that I came across when looking for a place to stay. It matches willing hosts with travelers that are seeking a legal, safe, and private place to stay for a night or two. We were very kindly hosted by a family in East-Central New York. We found out afterward that we were the biggest rig they had hosted, but we were able to squeeze in and out without too much trouble. The price of joining Boondockers Welcome was less than the cost of an overnight campsite at most parks, and if you offer a spot to host a boondocker at least three times per year, the membership fee is waived.
There were two issues that we ran in to on our first trip.
The first one was a foolish mistake that will necessitate me purchasing a new outdoor shower nozzle. After using the outdoor shower to rinse off some sticky hands (from lunch at a rest area), I did not double-check to make sure the compartment was closed tightly. When we got to our host family’s home that night, I noticed that the shower head had been dangling out and been dragging on the pavement for probably several hundred miles.
The second issue was a mechanical one. As I was accelerating onto one of the highway ramps in Central New York, I heard a noise from under the hood that reminded me of a noise I heard many years ago right before the serpentine belt snapped due to a frozen tensioner. I pulled off the road immediately, checked under the hood, and everything looked fine. No noise. We waited for most of an hour and I could not recreate the noise. Long story short, the truck has a slight exhaust leak somewhere under the hood, and it only makes the whistling/whining noise when operating under a heavy load (like, accelerating onto a highway while towing over 7500 lbs worth of trailer). (Almost a year later, my mechanic can still not pinpoint the leak – he says to come back when it gets worse, but it does not seem to be getting worse!)
As we approached my parents’ house, I was a bit nervous about having to back off of the street. I am comfortable with my backing skills, but I was anxious about the traffic. It can be a busy road at times, and with the bit of a knoll on one side of the driveway there can be a bit of a blind spot. If traffic is doing the speed limit, there is plenty of room to stop. But, traffic rarely does the speed limit there, and I didn’t want to be half off of the road when someone was zipping over the crest of the hill. Turns out, my worry was all for naught. There was no traffic behind me (surprise!) and I decided that I would just go for it. Slid it in “like a pro” on the first try! (Patting myself on the back as I type this).
The stay at my parents’ house went very well. We hooked up to 20A electric so that we could run our lights, fans, and refrigerator. We had water from their backyard garden hose (so I was able to make use of the regulator that we bought with the trailer). We used the bathroom in the house most of the time, so we did not have to worry about dumping until we got back to our own house (one of the Marathon stations near home allows free dumping with a fill-up).
