Departure Day has arrived! We left Rochester shortly after 9am. We quickly learned a few things:

• The touchscreen on the dash was NOT installed properly. It keeps shifting and the radio knob keeps falling off (it’s now in my pocket so we don’t lose it!). Ugh. Back to the dealer for them to repair that. Mark has it jerry-rigged pretty well, but whenever we hit a bigger bump in the road, it shifts and the volume adjusts up or down. VERY annoying.
• Having a really large windshield means we have a really large target for bugs, and they do like to hit it. What a mess!
• It’s really nice to be able to use the bathroom anytime, without needing to find a rest area or masking up to walk inside.
• It’s really nice to make our lunch at a rest area, with all of the food we carefully and thoughtfully packed for this trip.
• Drawers and doors will occasionally open up during travel. Make sure nothing can come flying out of them!
• For some unknown reason, the audio quality is far better when connecting my phone and listening through that, vs. using the actual radio in the RV. More to investigate there.

Overall, Mark and I are both really pleased with how easy the RV is to drive. Turns are easy and it handles well. Backing up is the biggest challenge, which makes sense given that we have no rearview mirror and no ability to see the backend of the vehicle. There is a backup camera, but it’s still a dicey proposition. Generally, when backing up is required, Mark is in the vehicle and I’m outside directing him…and that’s not easy either because he can’t necessarily hear me or see me. Might have to use our cell phones to talk to each other during the process!

We arrived at our campsite in College Park, MD shortly after 5pm, and I’m impressed to say that we were eating dinner an hour later. Mark made the water and electric connections quickly; just needed to do a little tightening on the water line to eliminate a drip. He decided to wait on the sewer connections until the next day, since our tanks weren’t full yet and didn’t need emptying. Leveling didn’t take long at all – just needed on the front tires (nice flat camp site, fortunately!) and the stabilizers were down in no time. Mark fired up the portable gas grill and the hot dogs were cooking by 6pm!