Never Say Never

One thing I’ve learned in 2+ years of marriage is “never say never.” When Chad and I started dating, he shared stories about his grandfather’s RV dealership and his family RV trips growing up, and told me he wanted to buy an RV for his family one day. My only exposure to RVs growing up was at the occasional outdoors show, so I didn’t have much of an interest in owning an RV or even taking an RV trip. Well, it didn’t take long for Chad to change my mind, and I’m glad he did. We recently went on our first RV trip and I loved it. 

We took our 2020 25’ Flying Cloud FBT to Oak Hollow Campground in High Point, North Carolina. It’s only about 30 minutes from where we live and from Blue Compass Greensboro (where Chad works). When taking your first RV trip or first trip in a new RV, we recommend staying close. It gives you a chance to work out any kinks before committing to a bigger trip, and there’s a nice sense of security knowing it’ll be easy to run home or to the dealership if you need something. You can read more about that trip in the next blog post. For now, I’ll talk about prepping for our first trip, which took a few days. 

I spent the better part of one day deep cleaning our Airstream, while Chad installed new televisions and did some other work. I was also in charge of shopping lists and packing up the RV. Since I’m new to this, I didn’t want to buy too much, because I knew my tendency would be to impulse buy rather than buying what we actually needed. I did buy towels, bedding, a few kitchen utensils and what I dubbed a junk drawer box (tape, scissors, pens, lighter, etc). I packed up everything else from what we already have around the house. I had a running list of kitchen utensils to pack, and I’d update the list as I cooked to make sure I took everything I needed. I staged everything on our kitchen table, which helped to make sure we didn’t forget anything. You can find my packing list here. 

I planned each meal (including how we’d use leftovers) to make sure we had all the ingredients. I realized I take my kitchen for granted, since it’s stocked with all the basics, so I had to carefully think through recipes. I bought some spices to leave in the Airstream, but everything else will have to be packed on a trip-by-trip basis. What I didn’t pack enough of is snacks! As with everything else, I tend to over-pack snacks for trips, and in an effort to not buy stuff we wouldn’t eat, I hardly packed any snacks at all. 

Packing clothes for myself and Chad was probably the easiest part of packing - and I loved being able to pack clothes and shoes straight in the Airstream rather than having to pack a suitcase. 

Well, that’s enough about our prep for the trip. Keep reading to hear about our first trip!