Everyone says RV life gets easier the longer you do it. Two years in, we mostly agree. Then we pulled into a reserved pull-through site in Wisconsin and spent the better part of an hour proving that a pull-through is only a pull-through if your rig actually fits through it. Watch the full video on YouTube or right here:
The pull-through site we couldn't pull through
On paper this site was the easy kind. No backing, just swing in one end and out the other. In reality, the entrance had a pole with the site number planted right where our turn needed to be, a tree tight on the other side, and a low branch hanging over the middle that would have raked the AC and the solar panels right off the roof.
We tried every angle we could think of. Forward and turn, back out, come in shallower, come in wider. Fabiola spotted while Nathan crept the truck in, and every line ended at the same three obstacles. The frustrating part is that we still don't know what we did wrong, because the honest answer might be nothing. Every other rig in the campground was a smaller trailer. The site just wasn't cut for a 40-foot fifth wheel, and no amount of careful spotting changes geometry.
After about an hour we gave up and started researching a plan B, looking up KOAs and anywhere else nearby that advertises big rig sites.
Joe to the rescue
That's when a guy who sort of works around the campground walked over. His first offer was to cut down the branch that was threatening our roof, which was generous but felt like a lot of tree surgery for one night. We went back and forth for a while, and then he pointed out the thing we'd never considered: it's a pull-through, so there's a second entrance. The exit end had more room. Back in through the exit, and the pole and the tree are no longer in the fight.
He guided Nathan all the way around, through the empty site in front of ours, and walked the trailer back in past the fire pit and the pine tree, keeping an eye on the slide clearance the whole way. Ten minutes later we were parked, level, and nothing on the roof was missing. His name is Joe, and he didn't have to cut a single branch.
The catch, as Fabiola pointed out, is that the maneuver only worked because the site in front of us was empty. If someone had been camping there, we'd have needed an even more creative answer. But that's the real lesson from this one: when a pull-through won't work forward, check whether it works backward before you drive away.
A quiet week that turned into a party
We stayed the week working remotely, and the campground had two completely different personalities. Monday through Thursday it was nearly empty, quiet enough that seeing one other person was an event. Then Friday afternoon every single spot filled up at once, and it was clear everybody knew each other. The whole place partied until about one in the morning.
We talked in the video about how full-timers and weekenders camp differently. When you live in the RV, you're technically always camping, so you stop doing the campfire-and-fishing routine unless guests are visiting. The weekend crowd is there to squeeze everything out of two days. Neither way is wrong, but it's funny to watch the same gravel loop switch modes overnight.
Barbecue redemption on the road
The next travel day was a short one, about three hours, and we stopped for lunch at a barbecue place along the way. If you watched our Louisville travel day, you know our last barbecue stop was expensive and bad. This one made up for it completely. And as Fabiola pointed out, the advantage of towing your house to lunch is that your floss is always in the parking lot.
Our first Harvest Hosts stay: a real Western saloon
That night was a first for us: a Harvest Hosts stay, and not at a farm or a winery but at an actual Western saloon. Fabiola also learned that "saloon" and "salon" are different words in English, which in Portuguese both land closer to a beauty salon, so her expectations walking in were interesting.
If you're new to full-timing, Harvest Hosts is a membership site and app where farms, breweries, restaurants, churches, and even private homes host RVers overnight. You pay for the membership, the stay itself is free, and the polite deal is that you spend some money with the host, which at a saloon is not exactly a hardship. It's also connected with Escapees RV Club now, and Escapees is worth knowing about for a different reason: mail. Our mail goes to their service in Texas and gets forwarded wherever we happen to be. If you want a full video on how we handle mail and memberships as full-timers, tell us in the comments, because we're happy to make one.
We parked on the grass, found the most level patch, and used the auto-leveling to raise the front without unhitching. Staying hooked up overnight means the morning departure is just slides in and go. We learned that lesson the loud way from the comments after our first boondocking stop, and someday we'll even install the SnapPad set we bought at the Tampa RV show, which is still in a box somewhere in the basement.
The peanut butter powder explosion
Right before heading in for drinks, Nathan opened a cabinet and heard the sound every RVer dreads, the little shift that means something let go on a bumpy road. This time it was a container of peanut butter powder, and it was everywhere. Luckily the container was almost empty. Last time it was Blackstone griddle oil, which was much worse to clean.
Wisconsin roads did not impress us this trip. And since we were headed to the same area where we had mice get into the RV last year, Fabiola wanted every trace of that powder gone before we parked. Powder on the floor is basically a written invitation.
The scale says we're overweight. Again.
An hour from our destination, Nathan pulled up the truck's onboard scale, which estimates the pin weight sitting in the bed. The reading was red and unhappy. The number itself is fuzzy, since it seems to max out and doesn't say how far over you are, but red is red.
This is a recurring storyline for us. We weighed the rig at a CAT scale last year and have been purging stuff ever since. So the plan is the same as always: when we get to Nathan's parents' place in Marquette, another round of getting rid of things, and before we leave town we want that gauge showing something other than red. Full-time RV life is a permanent argument with gravity, and gravity has been winning lately.
That's the week: one impossible campsite, one stranger named Joe who saved it, one saloon we slept behind, and one more reminder to stop accumulating stuff. See you in the next one.