Day 2 – Sunday : Oak Ridge (139 km) Well, the Lance 1161 is certainly a comfortable camper – it’s like a small apartment compared to our ’91 Shadow Cruiser. We sleep pretty well, but of course wake early – not a surprise given Sally’s body clock is 5 hours ahead of Oak Ridge time and who knows where mine is.
I didn’t want to disturb Chet and Janet so spent the early morning packing what little stuff we brought in the camper, plus the food Chet and Janet have generously supplied. I also familiarise myself with some of the camper and truck features, without making too much noise.
Once everyone is up Sally spends time with Janet, and Chet and I go through camper and truck features – you know, all those things that are slightly different on your camper to everyone else’s. The generator is faulty, but I didn’t think that will be a problem – whenever I’ve had a built-in one available I’ve found it too noisy, and Chet has quite a lot of solar, plus we will be driving nearly every day, so battery power is unlikely to be a problem.
It makes sense to do a test drive, so Chet elects to visit Obed – the climbing area near Oak Ridge.
This involves some narrow and twisty roads (though compared to what we drive back in England they are good – a lane for each direction – what luxury ?? ). But it is a really good chance to try out the truck and camper. My first impression is summed up by my question to Chet “Is the diesel usually this loud?”. I am really worried about it, but over the course of the journey I am told that the Ford 6.0 was even noisier than its larger GMC cousin. Chet also points out that I am driving quite slowly on the changing grades and bumps. It takes me a while to feel confident with the extra stability the dually gives compared to my RV at home, which I need to nurse over such obstacles to avoid throwing the camper around too much.
The scenery around Oak Ridge is very nice and the climbing looks great. We have to split into two for the drive since Chet has already loaded most of the contents of the camper into the space where the double-cab’s rear seats used to be. All that stuff we usually carry in our campers – well, that needs to come out if having the camper rebuilt. Adding to that, if you are taking a multi-month return journey, you will want it all back in again, so it is no good just throwing it into your garage – it needs to be packed up so you can unpack it the other side of the country when you collect it again in fall, ready for your cross-country journey.
We share a very pleasant day with Chet and Janet, and once again chat late into the evening.
