The week started pretty quiet, after work on Monday we added stickers to our rig. We got stickers representing us mountain biking along with the Adventure Pups and added them to the graphics already on the rig that look like a mountain.
We also discussed the need for additional equipment to be able to complete our trip in July to New England. We will be traveling on a holiday weekend and all campgrounds, private and state parks are requiring a 3 day stay. Obviously since we are just traveling through, we don’t need a 3 day stay. We looked at Harvest Hosts as an option since we bought a membership when we bought this RV thinking that we would finally be able to stay there since we are self contained. Unfortunately, we found out that we are not able to stay there since we have no way to run the AC to keep ourselves and the puppies cool on those steamy July nights. So we spent some time discussing options about making this RV capable of what we need it to do as well as if another rig would serve us better. We are looking into solar, battery banks, inverters, and generators. We are 900 lb from the GVWR on our RV and about 1,100 lb from the maximum towing capacity of the Jeep. We feel like this is just too close for comfort and safety. We will continue to research and discuss this until we find a solution.
On Tuesday we continued our discussion about our rig and different options for other rigs and setups. We also purchased new tires and a backup camera for the Apex in preparation for our trip. We wanted to change the stock tires as they were getting old and they didn’t feel safe to us for a 4,000 mile trip. We also bought the backup camera since we won’t have both cars on our trip to be able to have eyes on the back of the trailer and to see when it is safe to change lanes. We are trying to get the RV set up to be as functional as possible for us. We want it to be safe and work for us for what we need it to do.
By Thursday the weather had been warm for several days so we decided to go through our closets and clear out the clothes that were too warm for the Texas summer. We put them all in a vacuum bag for storage and placed them under the bed. We also re-watched Super Troopers since we were up for a laugh and relaxation. It was a pretty chill day.
On Friday I did the laundry while Dom worked on reinforcing the bumper on the RV so that we can carry the bikes back there on our trip in July and going forward. We don’t want to put the bikes on the roof of the Jeep, it causes a lot of wind resistance while driving and it is difficult to put them up there after a ride when we are tired. Having them on the back of the RV also means that we will have the hitch bike rack when we get there which will make it easier to go riding while traveling. It will be another great modification to the RV which will further allow us to live the way that we want to. We will make a trial run before we leave on the trip to make sure that the Jeep can handle the fully loaded trailer with the bikes’ weight bouncing on the back. It could cause too much sway but, we are hoping for the best.
Saturday was our appointment to change the tires on the Apex. The bikes were on the back of the Jeep so we decided to tow with the X5 to be able to do less work to get the RV to the tire place. We secured everything inside the RV and detached everything on the outside. We hooked up the trailer to the X5 using the Bluetooth brake controller and pulled out of the site. Almost immediately we started having problems. We have towed this way without issue previously so we didn’t expect anything to go wrong. The brakes were locking up on the trailer. We were able to get them to release by tapping the app but, every time we used the car brake pedal they would lock up again. This happened several times while we were still in the campground and we had to call to reschedule the tire appointment while we went to put the RV back in the site. Since we had a little extra time now, we went to grab some lunch in the Jeep before we hooked up the RV to it. We came back to the site, took the bikes and bike rack off the Jeep, disconnected the RV from the X5, took the weight distribution hitch off the X5 and moved it to the Jeep, put the bike rack and bikes on the X5, we hitched up the RV to the Jeep and drove away for take two. This amount of moving things around did have us discussing RV options that would involve less equipment, like a van. It is a lot of work to move our current setup but it is working for us for our current situation.
We smoothly drove away from the site, brakes functioning perfectly. We were so happy to know that the issue was not with the RV brakes but, with the Bluetooth brake controller. That is the least expensive problem to fix. We brought the RV to Discount Tire and they changed the tires for us. When we got back to the site, we set everything back up outside and in. By now it was 98 degrees outside and the humidity was pretty high as well so we decided to stay inside and have a movie day until it got cooler out. That didn’t happen until around 9 PM!
Sunday was biking day. All the trails were open thanks to the hot weather drying up the tons of rain that we have been receiving all spring. Since we still had to switch one of Dom’s pedals to a flat and we had to adjust the pegs on my pedals to help them be flats, we didn’t want to drive far. We also wanted to give ourselves some grace to get back into biking since it has been months since we could ride regularly. We went to our local trail to ride. We had a great time and rode 5.74 miles. It was another super hot and humid day and we were getting back into our stride. After our ride we got back home to clean up and put on another movie while we waited for the temperature to come back to a reasonable number. Once it cooled off we were able to walk the puppies around the campground with our friends and their pup to finish off another week. Catch you right here next week!
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