Ok folks it's been a long couple days of travel, but happy to say the Roo is home and is great! The DW and I made the journey to get it and for safety sake (first trip towing something this big/heavy) left the kids with Gramma. The first question they asked when we got home was "when are we going camping"
. If I can figure out how to post pics I will.
RVWholesalers was a great experience too. They were all super helpful and friendly and willing to go the extra mile to ensure everything went smoothly. There was a mix up with my spare (wrong size aluminum rim), but they are shipping me a new one to my house. They gave us all the time we needed on the walk-thru and were more than happy to answer any/all our questions with no rushing or pressing us for time. They even put up with me standing over them watching the install of my hitch so I could learn more about it. We spent about 3 hrs going thru it and then headed out on our first camping trip as a married couple.
Our first night camping did end up being in the pouring rain, but we managed to get the Roo set up, hooked up and the front bunk opened before the sky opened up. We had the dripping seams and condensation that has been mentioned in many a post, but other than that it all worked great. And for those wondering about the attached tent ends, we have them and they seem to be fine. There is no skirt, no exterior snaps or straps to contend with and most importantly we didn't have any hinge leaks or trapped water as mentioned in other posts (we did only test that theory on one tent end though). I did make the rookie mistake of opening the front bunk and forgetting to turn on the propane tanks until after the rain had started, but it was an easy fix (damp too).
So all in all it was a 342 mile trip towing the Roo with my Frontier and Equalizer WD hitch. I'm not gonna lie I would have preferred a couple more cylinders for the long grades, but the lil truck did a great job overall. A V6 pulling nearly 4000-lbs isn't going to win any races, but on the flats I was able to cruise along easily @ 60-65 mph and on the grades it would drop down a gear and maintain 50-60 mph. Granted it was revving pretty good, but what do you expect dragging a oversized brick thru the wind. The Equalizer lived up to all the hype. Didn't notice any real swaying even when passing/being passed by semi trucks and buses. It was rather quiet too, but being wet from the rain might have had something to do with that.
I also used the Tow-n-See suction cup mirrors extensions with good results. They stayed on even in the rain and made it easy to see when passing. The only negative was that they are small and don't really help much for backing. For $40 bucks a pair I was happy with their performance.
So needless to say we are psyched and ready to head back out again. I can now officially say I'm not a newbie anymore...lol.