After a 4 month wait, it was finally THE day. The day we picked up our new home on wheels and had to move it off the dealer’s lot. We were excited, nervous, and ready to get the show on the road, including Rus.
Rus was ready and chilling out in a new carrier we thought he’d love. Wrong (but that’s a story for another post!)
Anxiety levels were, shall we say, quite elevated at the thought of towing something 28 feet long. It was definitely nerve-wracking knowing that what we were pulling behind us was now our “house” and not just a weekend adventurer. We knew we didn’t want to have to drive too far from the dealership for what is dubbed the “shakedown” trip, and we quickly learned that making reservations in the middle of summer could be an issue since the demand for RV and travel-van spots skyrocketed during the pandemic. But, thankfully, Harry was on top of securing a location weeks before we even had possession of Ilene (more on her name later!) using Hipcamp. It’s a great tool for finding unique places to stay with a trailer or even a tent – think airbnb for camping. In fact, if you use our invite code when you sign up, you get $10 in HipCash to spend on your first trip! The Happy Horse Farm in Lakewood, Washington was the lucky winner!
Things were going great, Ilene in the rearview, the open road ahead of us. Then we got to the farm … let’s just say Harry and the gate into the field were not seeing eye to eye. We were able to pull into the driveway, got the gate code punched in but soon realized as we started to pull through it, that the trailer was going to end up taking out the post that the keypad was attached to. I know you’re thinking “just back up and try again.” That would have been a great idea except during the time we were contemplating just HOW to reverse back out into the road so we could swing a little further away from the post, the gate decided to try to close only the truck was already halfway through at this point. I hop out of the truck and try to just pull the gate back open with no luck whatsoever. I run around the back of the trailer and punch in the code again, the gate re-opens, buying us some time. We think it might be possible to move the post slightly so we won’t hit it. That was a big nope again. We have to back out of the gate. While it wasn’t the busiest road, there were still quite a bit of people trying to make it back home from work or heading out on their own adventures, and this created yet another first for us – backing up a 28 foot trailer. There wasn’t a light, so I became a traffic guard, stopping traffic in both directions so we could get the truck and trailer out onto the road to turn around and try again.
We decided it would be a good idea to give the farm owner a call for some advice. Thankfully, she told us of a good turn around spot at the end of the road and turned off the gate so we would have plenty of time to get through this time. SUCCESS! We got in! The field was huge so we could maneuver into a spot back by the fence.
We had access to water and electric here but no sewer hook-up. I don’t know about y’all, but I know we definitely didn’t want our black tank overflowing the first time we ever used it, so we quickly found a Starbucks nearby and that became our non-emergency bathroom for the week.
We also learned a lot about how electricity works and what appliances we could run simultaneously while being connected to the main house’s standard 15 amp circuit. And that, my friends, is NOT the air-conditioner and any other appliance. Yep. We did it. We tripped the breaker and the entire property lost power. Granted, we have solar panels and batteries, but those are not nearly enough to power the AC when it’s pushing mid-80 degree temps in Western Washington. Thankfully, someone in the house was able to switch it all back on, and we made sure everything stayed unplugged while the cool air was flowing.
I know what you’re thinking, “It’s a farm. So, where are all the animals?” The land there was mainly used for horse boarding, so there were horses, but there were some chickens, including a cute, little Silky named Marshmallow, running around. And my favorite – the neighbor’s cat that loved coming over to visit. We never did know its name, but for some reason, I kept calling it Roger. He looked like a Roger. We learned a little later that “Roger” was in fact a girl but that didn’t matter. The nickname stuck. I wanted to think that she kept hanging out because animals have such a keen sense for good people, but I’m pretty sure she just had a crush on our Rus (and loved walking all over our truck). She even tried teaching him how to hunt snakes.
One of the best parts about this lifestyle is getting to explore the areas where we stay. We drove into the nearby town and of course found the local dive bar. This was the first dive bar excursion, but as you’ll see in future posts, these dive bars became a thing for us to check out at each stop. The drinks are always strong and you can almost always find a pool table or skee ball machine. We always end up talking to some of the locals who give us suggestions on restaurants or other places we should try.
We also got some fun recommendations from the hipcamp host. She told us we were fairly close to American Lake, a great place for swimming or paddleboarding. We loaded our gear (and some tasty beers) and made our way there. There were a lot of people in the swimming area and hanging out on the docks, so we decided to put our boards in and head over to a more quiet part of the lake. There’s nothing like a peaceful paddle on the water on a hot day. That is until you jump in to cool off and forget your sunglasses are on the top of your head. Harry was pretty sad to lose his Pugs but I totally couldn’t stop laughing at his unfortunate luck.
While we had a blast exploring the town and adventuring around the lake, we decided to end our stay a day early to check out our first Harvest Hosts spot, The Willapa Brewing Co., on the way to our next reserved destination.
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