Here we go... On the Road Again

It's time to find out what our hard work (most of it has been published here, but a few retro-updates should cover the rest) is made of! We have literally spent every single free minute of our lives (and some stolen minutes too!) over the last four months preparing for our Deal's Gap trip for the R1/R6 Convention. We spent all weekend touching up a few things in the Rogue Leader--cleaning and sanitizing the interior, putting the new cushions in, making sure and double-sure that all running lights work, filling up the on-board propane tank, and securing belongings in the camper. Our departure from Chesapeake ran right on schedule at approximately 2234 on Tuesday night. We planned to drive until 0300 hours and stop off at the nearest Walmart, but detours along Interstate 40 put the targeted Hillsborough Walmart about 14 miles off our plotted course.

While in the Hillsborough Walmart parking lot, we noticed that our weary hitch engineering work had collapsed to unusable condition. Prior to this trip, Johnny cut off the useless hitch that was originally welded to the frame of the Rogue Leader because only half of it was precipitiously held to the camper's frame and the other half was missing. Since the old hitch was welded to the frame, cutting it off left no place to mount a new hitch to the RV. He decided to put down a single 4 foot 4x4 in the exterior storage compartment to mount the new hitch to and two 6-foot 2x6's on the interior of the RV beneath the foldout bed for reinforcement. We were unsure as to how well the mount would hold because the structural integrity of the exterior storage compartment floor had been compromised by 30 years of improper maintenance. Our wooden beam solution was the most effective and most affordable solution we could achieve with the tools and resources we had. Our 400 mile drive wore on the RV and the mildly rotten floor fell through on us. The floor literally dangled a foot and a half from. RV. The hitch and trailer were held on securely by the reinforcement beams beneath the bed and there was no tension in the safety chain so we were not completely in critical condition. We needed to fix the mount before we proceeded any further because the steep grade of Black Mountain and the Great Smokies was just 200 miles away.Fortunately, the Walmart we stopped in was in a shopping center with a Home Depot. We finally settled in with the intention of waking up at 0800, catching a few hours of shuteye, eating Subway breakfast (also conveniently located in the Hillsborough shopping center. We, honestly, couldn't have planned the stopping location better!), picking up groceries, gathering supplies from Home Depot, executing our hitch fix, and hitting the road before 1100.

At approximately 1318, we left the Home Depot parking lot with a $70 securely-rigged hitch, $160 down in groceries, and exhaustion. We anticipate arriving at our Cheoah Point campsite at approximately 2200.