Our first travel trailer trip was to Palo Duro Canyon State Park. It’s only a few hours from where we live, close to a Walmart for the things we knew we would inevitably forget or not even know we needed, and a beautiful backdrop for our shakedown trip.
At the time, our oldest, Z, was 3.5 years old and our youngest, C, was just shy of two months old. Traveling with a toddler and an infant certainly has its complications. Z slept in the bottom bunk, and the top bunk was mostly used for storage.
We bought a Fisher Price baby dome on Facebook Marketplace and set it on the floor by the dinette for C. Our two small dogs (22 lbs and 16 lbs) sleep on the couch.
Before setting off, we bought chocks, a water hose, a surge protector, and a sewer hose. We also bought a small grill that travels in the bed of the truck, along with our chairs. We packed stuff to make burgers and hotdogs, along with a variety of kid snacks. The infant was pretty easy to feed at that point.
After our first night, the first thing we knew we needed to do was something about the mattress in the RV queen-sized bed for the adults. It was awful. We also knew we needed some kind of window covering to go over the door to avoid waking at sunrise.
After identifying our problems, we went looking for some solutions. To the internet!
We ordered a roll of Reflectix insulation to put over some of the windows to keep out both light and heat. It has worked beautifully. We hung it up with Command Strips and it’s still going strong three years later.
We also ordered a 3” memory foam mattress topper. It has made a world of difference, but we still plan on replacing the mattress soon. We’ll probably cut the topper we bought to size for one of the bunks once we replace the mattress so the boys can be more comfortable, and we can sleep when one of them demands snuggles in the middle of the night.
We also learned we needed to be extra careful when installing our weight distribution hitch, as we lost one of the Blue Ox tow bars somewhere along the way. Billy Max RV Repair in Canyon, TX was a life saver in helping us replace it quickly so we could get back home.
While there, we visited the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum and ate at the Creek House Honey Farm. The museum had dinosaurs, so it was a big hit with Z.
It was tough finding the time to go, but we knew that it could be rough if we did not take some time to get a feel for what we were doing before leaving on a much longer trip.
We came home excited to go on our first bigger trip a few weeks later, and looking forward to the mattress upgrade. It was a great first weekend learning experience.
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