Driving Lessons

As a teenager, I took Driver’s Ed in school. I learned all the things I needed to know to pass my driving test plus the importance of driving defensively. I’m a pretty good driver. But man, this behemoth we just bought scares me. I’ve never driven anything even close to that size. So, being the intelligent person I am, I signed up for Driver’s Ed again.

This one is called RV Driving School. You can check them out at http://www.rvschool.com/. Since, I wanted to have confidence in Dave’s driving as well, we signed up for a combination class where we would take turns driving for two days of six hours per day. I had my doubts about my ability to spend that much time doing this but our instructor, Dan Sheppard, said he could work with us on timing and what we’d do when. We ended up doing three hours on Friday afternoon, two three-hour sessions on Saturday, and a final one Sunday morning with the morning ones starting at 9 am rather than the usual 8 am.

To make it easier on all of us Dan has an RV lot with a casita and two RV full hookup spots in the Yuma, Arizona, area. He and his wife live in their RV using one set of hookups and he rents the other one to his students.

This is so none of us will have to function quite so early in the morning. It turns out Dan is not an early morning person, either. Each morning he came out to greet us still eating his cereal.

Then once he and Dave checked everything out we set off for our lessons.

It was fantastic! Dan taught us how to use our RV as a measuring device. We learned how to set up our mirrors so we could see the things we’d need to be able to see.  We learned how to line up the side curb along the windshield wipers then how far to pull forward to be able turn right corners without driving over the curb. We learned how to line up the center line of the cross street in our side window to turn left without wiping out the car waiting there for its own left turn. We learned how to line up our tailpipe with a campsite’s entrance to get in with enough room on each side to be able to open our slides. We leaned how much tail swing our RV has in case we ever get parked next to the railing of a ferry so we know how to exit the ferry without hitting the railing. We learned how many typical traffic lanes it takes us to be able to make a U-turn. We learned how to test our air brakes. We learned how to make our engine shift into high idle and when and why to do that. We learned how to use our transmission and exhaust brake to help us go up and down mountains. And we learned how to keep the transmission from hunting back and forth for the correct gear which can make me car sick.

We are now exhausted but we know a LOT more about how to handle this behemoth we bought. You are safe being in our vicinity when we are driving now. Of course, I need LOTS of practice yet so don’t come too close if you see me trying to park the thing.

TTYL,

Linda