The Fox Has Landed

Yesterday morning as I walked out in the driveway to get the morning paper, I saw a large red fox dart between houses about two doors up the street. Was this an omen? If it was an omen…it was a good one as you can see from the picture above. Yes, I finally have taken possession of my new Arctic Fox fifth wheel trailer.

The day was not without it’s little glitches however. The day before yesterday I had gotten a call from the dealer saying that the “capture plate” I provided him to put on the trailer to match my hitch, didn’t fit. That is a big problem and there is no way to tow the trailer without it. After a couple of hours of panic and scrambling I found the correct part and picked it up on Wednesday morning just before driving down to Colorado Springs.

The drive down was uneventful but my mind was racing with thoughts of the trailer, how it would handle under tow, how I would handle it under tow in traffic and on and on. I was pleasantly surprised that the truck got about 20 mpg on the highway on the way down.

I spent about two hours at the dealership finishing paperwork and doing an inspection of the trailer. After all that it was time to hook up and head home. I was nervous for about 5 blocks. After all I have never towed anything this big and I had to drive in fairly heavy traffic for a couple of miles. After five blocks however I realized that this was an easier tow than my old trailer. The more I drove it the more amazed I was about how easy this thing towed. To top it all off I managed to get 14 mpg while towing it home. That may not sound like a lot but compared to the 7-9 mpg I was getting with the old Class A it’s great.

So the trailer now sits in front of the house. I think I’ll christen it “Bivouac”, just like the original trailer I had a couple of years ago. I spent most of today loading it with all the thing I took out of my old rig and dreaming of my February trip. The covenants of my neighborhood only allow me to keep it on the street for 72 hours so tomorrow I’ll have to take it to the storage lot. I expect I’ll make numerous trips to the lot next week bring things that I forgot to pack.

Thanks for visiting.