SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION...Beware of Strangers Giving you Driving Advice

Living in an RV is a great conversation starter, kinda like walking a cute dog, it gets attention.  So, when people see you trying to maneuver your RV into a spot, they have a tendency to want to help you.  Beware of strangers and their good intentions. Our first encounter with this strange phenomenon happened while pulling into an RV park in Lakeland, Florida.  We were instructed to call the park 1/2 hour prior to arriving.  This would give the park owners time to open the gates and position their vehicle so they could escort us to our space.

When we arrived, the gates were open and a pick-up truck was parked to the far left of the driveway.  The right hand turn into the park was tight but doable.  At least it was doable if after the turn you were going to continue into the park by driving in straight.  After Dave had already committed to the turn and the rig was about 1/3 of the way in, the escort signals that Dave needs to make a u-turn.  Driving straight in was not an option and remember that backing up is a no no so, Dave cranks the wheel in order to make the turn and we almost make it.  The RV clears the fence post no problem, the car, not so lucky.  When we arrived at the park, we were towing a Chevy "Traverse".  After entering the park, we were towing a Chevy "verse" and we were missing a few layers of paint on the passenger side.  In hindsight, if the escort had left the entire driveway open for us to enter and told us a u-turn was necessary, we could have prepared better.  The lesson we should have learned here is check out the lay of the land yourself before attempting tight maneuvers, don't rely on old strangers that mean well.

Perhaps you noticed that I said "The lesson we should have learned"...It took a bolt scraping the side of the RV, being towed out of a ditch with a tractor and getting stuck in a muddy sink hole before we started to catch on.  Unfortunately, it took us a few more hard lessons before we figured out that if we disagree on the subject of "I don't think that's a good idea vs "I think it will be alright", we go with the former...