By the time spring 2026 had arrived I had made the decision to fully commit to RV life and vowed not to take any half-measures in the process of buying and equipping a trailer that I’d planned on living in for at least the next two years.
Initially I was immersed in the idea of the summer PCS road trip that would take me and the kids from Washington to Washington. Prior to the spring, the plan included having the girlfriend come with me on this move and beyond, but things were starting to cool down between us and it was looking more and more likely that, at best, it was going to turn into a long-distance relationship. I knew I had to build a life for myself that had the flexibility to include a second person, without counting on the second person to be there.
The input of my girlfriend was invaluable during the process, because I was starting to get laser focused on units that had a “bunk house” design to accommodate all of us. She started asking leading questions that got me to really think about how often the kids would be in the RV after this summer and I really started to consider alternative layouts, and thank goodness she challenged my thinking, because as I sit here now in what amounts to my studio cabin on wheels– layout matters.
After hours of research and shopping I found a layout I thought could be the answer, the 2025 KZ Durango 326RLT. It had two couches that turned into full beds and that layout partitioned the living room. There was one down in Woodland, Wash. and I made contact with a salesman down there to arrange to look at it.
My initial impression of it was… fine. It briefed better on paper and in photos than I experienced in person. It came with a queen bed, the bathroom was the standard size (single shower stall, one sink, not much room), and the kitchen layout was… odd. Right next to it was a KZ Durango 333RLT, which was a little bit bigger but a traditional 5th wheel design. I toured it and right away I knew that this was the one. When you walk in you are greeted by a residential sized refrigerator that is a 18 cubic foot GE stainless steel monster. Then, you go in the bathroom where it has an apartment-sized shower stall and his/hers sinks. The bedroom had a king bed with a closet that included a washer and dryer hookup. There was a ceiling fan, two air conditioners, electric fireplace, theater-style loveseat recliner, and couch that turned into a queen bed. This was it, this was goldilocks.
I did my inspection upon taking delivery of the unit, found it to be in the condition I expected it to be in (they needed to fix a few things before I picked it up), smirked at the slimeball sales manager that was miffed I came in with my own financing and didn’t buy any of their bullshit junk-fee packages, and hooked it up.
Because of my commitment to not half-ass this operation, I got airbags installed on my truck. This does a couple of things: 1- Improves the look by eliminating sag that comes with towing heavy things (like a 13,000 lbs 5th wheel that is at the top of your truck’s hitch weight payload) and 2- helps distribute the weight back to the front wheels thereby giving you better control under load. This was not cheap but they ended up giving me good service for the duration of the trip, except when I left the airbag remote on the dash during a portion of the drive, causing it not to work for a couple hours.
Now, I originally enlisted in the Army as a truck driver, and my father has driven one nearly his entire adult life, so there was some foundational knowledge on how to pull trailers prior to this, but I’d never owned the trailer before (let alone the truck). Not only did I now own this truck/trailer combo, but very soon my whole life was going to be in these two. I pulled the trailer into the parking lot, stopped and immediately set up the tire pressure monitor and trailer brakes because I wanted to take extra care that I was hedging against any catastrophic failure right off the rip.
I had a very simple plan: Tow it at 60 miles per hour from the dealer to the storage lot I’d secured on the Air Force side of the base I was stationed at in Washington. Straight up. Unfortunately I had to battle through the thick of afternoon rush hour traffic, but not much since it started just before the gate I needed to go into.
I parked it at my assigned space (my trailer backing skills were… rusty) and promptly drained the fresh water tank that the dealer had for some reason completely filled. I was overjoyed that this day had gone off, mostly, without a hitch.
The next day I returned to the lot to grab the trailer and get a full set of steel belted radial tires installed all around. Most of these trailers come with cheap tires that are barely in the appropriate load range, less so for what I was going to be asking of it over the summer. I felt this was an appropriately prudent move. Full steel construction G load-rated tires, my adherence to not going over 60 (ever), correct cold load inflation, and a robust tire pressure/temperature monitor mounted to my dash gave me the best possible chance at avoiding catastrophic failure on the highway.
My next move was to remove the built-in dinette. This was not one of those dinettes that was useful in that it had built-in storage, or converted into a small bed, it was a glorified counter bracketed into the main slide wall with two unusually heavy chairs and a heavy bench seat. Those were going right into storage and would probably not see the light of day until this thing gets sold, or maybe never. This space was going to be for my girlfriend’s dog’s crate, but I had designs to put a desk there once I got settled in D.C. Neither of those things ended up happening, but I had the right idea– nothing in this RV was safe. This was going to be my home and it was just as much a blank slate as any stick-built structure.
Now, to be fair to the universe, there is a lot of hindsight that went into that last paragraph. I was definitely more in a space making decisions that were functional than form early on. It was very obvious that a woman had no input into the decisions I made very early. Fortunately, my girlfriend was adept at making gentle assertions about different ways of doing… everything… in ways that usually didn’t challenge my independence. Was it because she was making good points, or did I receive them better because she was hot and used a gentler version of her voice? Does it matter? Not really, in this instance– ends not means, etc.
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The views and opinions presented herein are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of War or the U.S. Army.
Breaking Camp 