There's a first time for everything

It happened so fast I hardly had time to become nervous. One minute, I was resting comfortably as we cruised down I-70; the next I was behind the wheel towing Kong and thinking, "Oh, my god, I'm doing it!"

My first turn at towing came as a surprise and without prior discussion with my camping partner. In fact, Leonard so nonchalantly suggested that we switch places that I almost missed what he was trying to say.

Watching the "Tow Your 5th Wheel

Trailer Like a Pro" video from RV

RV Education 101 prepped us for

towing.

In retrospect, it's probably better that my life as a towing virgin ended without a lot of forethought. I might otherwise have worked myself into a jittery stupor pondering the tremendous responsibility associated with moving 26,000 pounds (mas o menos) of RV + truck in traffic at 65 mph. Add to that the knowledge that it's your house behind you and one wrong move could trash it, and the prospect can be downright nauseating. Because there wasn't time to think, I can probably best describe how I was feeling using the words of that great philosopher Alfred E. Neuman. "What, me worry?"

After about an hour, I pulled us off the highway and into a truck stop for gas and lunch. In St. Louis traffic, mind you, I'd managed several traffic merges, a construction zone and three turns (to get to the truck stop). We both judged the experience as a successful one.

Why all the hoop-de-doo about my learning to tow? Just go to any RV gathering and ask who tows their rigs. You'll find that the overwhelming majority of raised hands belong to the males in the room. Fact is, most women do not learn to tow (or drive) their RV's.

I knew from the start that not only did I want to tow our 5er for the experience of it, but it just seemed the smart thing to do. After all, what if something happened to Leonard and he couldn't drive? Or, more likely, what if he just wanted a break from driving?

It's not clear to me why women are generally hesitant to take on this challenge. I just know that
my glass-ceiling-braking momma would be proud to know that her girl had stepped up.

Moving KongZilla down the road can be intimidating. Hard to imagine, but many 

RV's out there are even longer than this!

Not to be outdone, Leonard decided to take on another special RV challenge (something I have yet to do). He backed Kong into place. To this point, we've been able to avoid the whole backing-up thing by staying at parks that have pull-through sites. Eventually, that party will come to an end, which makes learning to move in reverse essential.

Lest you think this is not a big deal, imagine this. You're driving an eight-and-a-half foot wide, 55-foot long box using only your side mirrors to gauge progress. You have to push the thing
precisely between the marked lines of a parking space without touching any nearby objects.
Complicating this is the fact that the 5th-wheel's hitch acts like a hinge, so the trailer you're pulling doesn't track with the truck. Rather, it has it's own pivot point. All this going on can deliver a real
antacid-popping experience!

Needless to say, backing up requires both good driving skills and lots of patience. Leonard
executed his first go with the calm of a veteran trucker. Well done!

Cape Girardeau's Red House Interpretive Center is a replica

of the original trading post, owned by Louis Lorimier whose

family played host to Meriwether Lewis in 1803.

Another first for the week: we spent time actually touring the sights at one of our stops. This is news because with our previous camps it seemed we always had a bunch of chores to deal with and really couldn't stop to smell the proverbial roses. Cape Girardeau, our current locale, proved the exception. We spent a good bit of Saturday wandering through the center of this historic, charming and old (by U.S. standards) city.

(If you're even in the area, this place is worth checking out.)







The Red House is full of interesting relics depicting life

on the U.S. frontier in the late 18th/early 19th centuries.

A typical 18th-century garden with herbs to serve the

household's kitchen. (What? No Safeway?)

This replica of the garrison at Fort D was built to preserve the last

of four Civil War sites build to protect Cape Girardeau from

capture by the Confederate Army.

The Cape G garrison, under the command of a young Hiram

Ulysses Grant (a.k.a Ulysses S. Grant) set up painted logs to look

like cannons, making the fort appear better armed than it was.

No doubt, many more firsts lie ahead of us on this adventure, some good, some not-so-good. I guess if it all went smoothly, they wouldn't call it an "adventure," now would they?