Our third and final day of BootCamp got off to a rough
start. We both overslept and woke up at
7am for an 8am roll call. Not
good. And it was hot breakfast day and
if we were late, we’d miss out! Food is
a powerful motivator – at 7:56 we were showered, dressed and in the food line. Luckily our friends saved our seats and we
were back in the front row.
Today starting with towing…towing cars, towing trailers,
towing those big rigs called 5th wheels. It was a good review for us and gave us some
new tips for keeping Chuck and Toad connected.
Then on to tire safety. Our
instructor for this spent 30 years working in the tire industry and now has all of us religiously check pressure daily and tire temperature at every stop. Robin is excited since she gets to buy an
infared thermometer to check tire temperature.
Yippee skippee!
Interesting RV
trivia for you – RV tires are truck tires and could easily go 100,000
miles. But somewhere between 5-7 years
old, the ozone in the air has weakened the tires to the point that they’re
dangerous to drive on even though most RVers have only 60,000 miles on them. So they have to be replaced. On Chuck that’s 6 tires (dual axle in the
back) at about $1000/tire. The message
is to start saving for the new set as soon as the current set is paid for.
I have about 6 more pages of fascinating notes about tires,
so be sure to ask me about them next time you see me so I can share. Next topic was personal safety. An ex-policeman/police science instructor
talked about ways to secure the rig, lighting, locks, tasers, wasp sprays,
weather radios and guns. All good information
if a bit frightening at times. Bottom
line, like at home, use common sense and trust your instincts. The day ended with video of RVs having tire blow outs and instruction on how to handle it. Hopefully knowledge we'll never need. Then an open panel session with
all the instructors so we could get the final questions answered and finally {cue Pomp
and Circumstance} graduation
.
I’m sure you’re wondering how both Robin and I could come in
first place. I’d like to tell you we
tied, but the truth is that the sticker just means this is our first Escapade
Rally. It also means that all the Escapee
veterans think we need to be hugged. Don’t
ask me, it’s an Escapee thing.
Nonetheless, it’s been a great 3 days, we’ve learned a ton, know enough
now to be much safer and smarter when RVing and have made some new
friends. Next to come is the big Escapee
Rally-The Escapade with seminars, vendors, line dancing and more all here in Sedalia, MO. Don’t look for us at line-dancing though.
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| Our Instructors from our first row seat. |
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