The dry..well,not so dry run.

These are pics of the first RV park I stayed in outside of the Lazydays dealership/campground. We drove from Tampa, after buying the motorhome, to Daytona Beach to pick up a trailer that will allow me to haul my pickup and my motorcycle at the same time.

I didn’t call or plan ahead, my brain was in hotel mode – not motorhome mode. It didn’t dawn on me that the RV park office might actually close at a certain time instead of being like a hotel and having someone man the desk 24/7. We got to Daytona at around 5:30p. I thought I’d just park in the Walmart parking lot as I’d heard that was something they allowed. Well, they don’t in Daytona Beach! There is a big sign (I should have gotten a pic) that says ‘Absolutely no overnight RV parking’.

That means, plan B – find an RV park. I called a couple of places and they were already closed for the day. I happened to get in touch with one campground that was just closing up. They agreed to leave the information for the available slot at the desk so that when I got there I would know where to go without having to wait for someone in the office.

During the conversation regarding the reservation. I felt like it was important to mention the size of my rig to make sure they could accommodate. Being new to this (first night) I didn’t know if that was a reasonable question or not. When I told her what I was driving, she said “yeah, I ‘think’ we can squeeze you in”. I thought that meant they had a slot or two open, it did – kind of. What it really meant was “the turns will be tight and it will be extremely difficult to navigate but if you are competent and experienced you ‘should’ be able to pull it off.

Did I mention this was the first run for me? 🙂 When we got to the campground, it was dark and had started to rain. Not like a little drizzle or anything, no…that would have been far too easy. It was a down pour! So here I am with a grand total of 4 hours logged in the drivers seat, ZERO hours logged backing it up and I’m navigating through palm trees hanging over the very narrow path meant for something half the size of my motorhome. Easy right?

If it wasn’t for Jason and some guy named Steve I would have taken out a tree while backing into the campsite. Thanks to their skillful coaching and navigation I missed it by at least and inch! Might as well have been a mile I figured. 🙂

The next day we went to go pick up the trailer with my pick up. The dealership was only about 20 minutes away from the campground. It was still raining. Off and on, but when it was raining, it was REALLY raining. We got back to the campground with the trailer, no issues there at all. We then started loading up the truck after hitching up the trailer to the RV.

What I didn’t take into account was the fact that I increased the length of the whole unit by about 28 feet (trailer length and truck length combined) which meant the already tight navigation out of the park just became that much tighter. Jason helped me navigate out of the park, again without his help, I KNOW I would have hit something…else. We made it all the way to the exit, I asked Jason to get in, tried to make the last turn nice and wide but got too close to a palm tree and sideswiped the RV!

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