She drives!

Do you love to-do lists? I do. Oh the joy when placing a check mark next to a task. – Especially when it is a check mark next to a long-lived, tried to ignore, man-I-really-didn’t-want-to-do-it task.

For quite some time, one of those pesky, put off tasks has been: Learn to drive this 42′ monstrosity motor coach.

That box has now been checked! Like a boss.

I stepped up to the plate and hit a home run. (By home run, I mean I didn’t injure anyone or anything while driving.)

While I won’t be backing into camp sites any time soon, I did pretty super awesome driving in the forward direction. My turns were descent, if somewhat slow. And while my stress level was fairly high when in the stop and go traffic, I dealt with it.

I drove just shy of four hours, on four-lanes, two-lanes, and interstates. By the end of the drive, my hands were seriously sore. – I hadn’t realized I had been clutching the steering wheel the entire time.

This experience provided me with a whole new respect for the seriousness that comes with driving these massive machines we venturers traverse the country with. While I knew this RV wouldn’t stop on a dime, or even a dollar bill, I had no idea how difficult and and how long it would take to bring it to a stop. Thankfully, I kept my speeds on the slower side and drove conservatively.

My hope is that we all take it slow and enjoy the drive. We’re not in a race, and to throw just one more cliche into the mix, but it’s really true for us RV Venturers: The journey is the destination.