The First Stop: Tucker’s Landing RV Park & Marina - Cincinnati, Ohio
This RV park in Cincinnati, Ohio holds a special place in my heart. It was our first “overnight.” It was our first for a lot of things—connecting the water, electricity, sewer hose, and taking the rig off the truck after a long drive. It was the finish line for a laundry list of doubts and fears about how capable we were at being RV travelers.
This was the beginning of a 63-day journey to truly test our limits. To be 100% transparent, I wasn’t convinced we were going to be able to do this at all. I had visions—and nightmares—of having to call tow trucks, family members, or friends to come and save us.
That first day of travel was anything but smooth. It rained the entire way, and being novice drivers with a 30-foot apartment attached to our bumper, we were moving well below the speed limit. We felt every bump in the road and every gust of wind from the storm—or from the extremely annoyed semi-truck drivers who barreled past us at what felt like 100 miles per hour.
Roads we had driven dozens of times in our lives suddenly felt foreign. My knuckles were white, and my eyes were open wider than they had ever been. I was hyper-aware of every turn signal, brake light, high beam—and most of all—the gas mileage. :)
The first hour of that drive was nerve-racking, to say the least. But then something happened. There was a break in the rain. The anxiety I was feeling began to subside, and my grip loosened. The roads on the newer highway were smooth, and I finally allowed myself to turn on some music. I reached for Karie’s hand and looked back to check on P. We made it.
Despite everything the road threw at us, we were safe and moving closer to our destination. I decided to pull over at the first Love’s Travel Stop we saw to stretch our legs and go through the process of navigating a gas station with the trailer. Admittedly, I cheated a bit by choosing a huge truck stop—but after that storm, I needed a win. That’s exactly what I got, even if it wasn’t perfect. I wish I had taken a photo of the angle at which I pulled up to that pump. There weren’t any end units available. I didn’t say anything to Karie, and she didn’t mention it to me—because she’s a good wife (lol).
We filled up and hit the road again.
I felt like we had just experienced the gauntlet—but we still had four hours to go. As we pulled out of the gas station and back onto the interstate, I noticed I didn’t have the same trepidation. It was somehow a little easier.
The bad weather continued as we got closer to our stop for the night, and all we could think about was, “It would be really nice to not have to set this thing up in the rain.” It was a back-in site, and outside of our driveway, we had never successfully leveled and parked the travel trailer. (We did have a death-defying experience in the snow at a local state park—but that’s another story for another day, about overconfidence and poor decision-making.)
The weather cleared up for us about 35 minutes before arriving at Tucker’s Landing. We pulled into the park and found our spot. I used my newly installed backup camera to assist with the back-in and the LevelMate Pro to level the rig after taking it successfully off the truck. Stairs down, slide out—and all that was left to do was test the internet connection and grab dinner.
Getting set up was a breeze. We looked at each other at one point and said, “Is that it?” What had been built up as this monumental task was met with preparation, patience, and a sense of adventure. I had been watching videos about RV travel on YouTube for years at this point. By osmosis—or coercion—Karie had been right there with me, learning or at least listening to my “dumb shows.”
We would find out over the next few setups and tear-downs that we needed a checklist and assigned chores, but for this first trip, it was in the books. We were safe for the evening, connected, dry, and ready to get a good night’s sleep before heading off to Mammoth Cave in the morning—our first National Park in the RV.
This seemed like the best place to start this blog because sharing this with the world feels a lot like that first trek in the rain with a ton of weight behind us. We are uncertain of how well we will do with this. We have a destination in mind. We have years of road trips, national park visits, and international travel to share with you all—and our hope is that with all that “weight” behind us, we’ll pick up the necessary momentum to pull you all along on this journey.
Where every mile tells a story…
– Kurtis
