Welcome to the Camping Family, Eugene

After our unfortunate little stint with the transmission in Maryland, we decided it was time to put the Chevy out to pasture and pick up a rig that can actually handle our travel-heavy lifestyle. And only a heavy-duty rig can handle such a heavy-duty lifestyle! So, without any further ado, meet Eugene: 

I don't usually name my vehicles, but this one is a special exception. When we were shopping for trucks, I was actually hesitant about this one at first because it looks like, as I put it, "an old man's truck." It's something about the two-tone paint and road wheels... Well, the best "old man" name I could think of was Eugene, and that's what stuck.

It felt sad to leave the Chevy behind after all the adventures we had with it. It towed our little family all over the country and back again, never complaining once, no matter how steep the hills were. It was a great truck, but we just needed something we knew could handle the workload we threw its way. And there's nothing Eugene won't be able to handle. That's about as heavy duty as you can get!

The timing was perfect. We picked Eugene up from the dealer the week before a camping trip to Dan Nicholas Park just up the road in Salisbury, NC. A short trip would be ideal to learn about the new truck and give it a little road test before a big trip.

There were a few things we had to figure out before heading down the road. First, I learned pretty quickly that our hitch didn't fit anymore. Eugene, being a heavy-duty truck, has a heavy-duty 2.5" hitch insert, while the Chevy (and our existing hitch) was 2". 

Luckily, I discovered that little issue before we hit the road, so we hopped over to Home Depot and picked up an adapter sleeve so our old hitch would fit the new truck.

The real test came on the day we were leaving. We got Eugene all fired up, hooked him up to the trailer, and couldn't get the trailer lights to come on. We were literally about the head out, and now we had to deal with this, on our brand-new (to us) truck.

On the way out, we hopped over to the nearby NAPA store to pick up some fuses, which we hoped were the problem. After spending $40 on a variety of fuses (because you never know), we had the trailer lights all lit up and the backup camera functioning. It was stressful in the moment, but we got it figured out pretty quickly and relatively painlessly. 

​After a few little hiccups, we were on the road with our new rig!

By the time we grumbled into the campground, John was already set up and waiting for us. He was going to be joining us for our Halloween camping adventure. He was already familiar with this campground and was telling us about all the cool things they had here like a carousel, mini golf, playgrounds, and even a train! It sounded like quite the production.

When we came in, there was nothing but woods. Where were all the goodies!? It was actually a really neat park. The campground was off by itself in the woods where it was nice and quiet. After just a short walk through one of the trails, it opened up to this almost amusement park-like area. It was definitely one of the more unique campgrounds we've stayed in.

Over the weekend, we enjoyed our time relaxing and exploring the park. We even got to play a little mini golf, and Rose tried to climb a tree to catch some bears. 

After a bit of a rocky start, our first trip with Eugene was a success. We had a great weekend at Dan Nicholas Park and were ready to take on more, even bigger, and heavy-duty adventures in the very near future.