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[tholtman]

We took our first big trip last week. Left from St. Louis, stopped a night Wilson Lake State park KS, then spent a week in Salida, Colorado. We stopped for a night at Wilson Lake again on the way home. We're also such RV nerds we stopped at two CW's along the way: Columbia, MO and KC, MO.

Lessons learned:
1. Driving in 50mph wind gusts is not possible - at least not for us. We hit a couple storms and pulled over after getting nearly completely blown off the road.
2. Thought I had to have the gennie on for the fridge to work so, we did the entire drive to CO w/gennie running. After thinking more about it, I realized if I kept fridge on gas it would work fine w/o gennie.
3. Plan ahead - next time we'll plan our gas stops to get the best gas price in the more competitive areas. We stopped a couple times and had to pay the price of the only gas station at the stop.

Adventures:
1. Driving in 40-50mph wind gusts - Don't think I've been that scared behind the wheel!
2. Time behind the wheel - spent about 8-9 hours behind the wheel on back to back days. When there wasn't the wind gusts this was quite enjoyable and we got to see a lot of sites along he way. Just need to find more things for the DW to do so she's not so bored!

Key take-aways:
1. We really enjoyed our time camping and travelling with the motorhome. But the ACE 27.1 may be a bit small for us. So, most of the trip home was talking about if/when we upgrade
2. Need to install a rear track-bar to help with the tail-wag
3. Driving that F53 chassis is loud upfront and while it handles 'ok', it would be nice to have alternatives other than shelling out $$ for a DP. Yes, I have done the CHF and installed Safe-t-plus stabilizer. Maybe higher-end gassers are quieter but that's something we'll evaluate if/when we upgrade.
4. We can't wait for our next trip!