Our retirement trail is going to take us west quite soon. Indeed, we’re going to put ourselves and our RV and pickup to a fairly stern test.

We’ll be parked for a few nights in Durango, Colo.

The test will occur on our way there. We expect to climb significantly in a fairly short period of time.

We’ve been through Durango already — years ago. We haven’t spent any significant amount of time there. This adventure will provide us proof that our truck is, indeed, strong enough for us and our fifth wheel. We already believe it. We just sort of need some affirmation of it.

We are inching our way toward (more or less) full-time RV living. Family obligations likely won’t allow us to be living exclusively in our RV while we hunt for a new home. But we intend to spend significantly more time in our RV exploring this and/or that bucket list destination.

North America, as you know, contains a number of towering mountain ranges. The Rocky Mountains loom huge out there just to our west; farther out west are the Sierra Nevada and the Cascade Range. We’ve hauled our RV over the Appalachian Mountains and the Ozarks and, yes, we’ll go back … again and again.

But as we prepare for this next big adventure in our lengthy life together, we are looking at this moment for one final road test that will give us complete confidence in our vehicle assembly’s ability to take us to wherever we intend to go.

It’s a big world out there. We intend to see every single bit of it that time will allow.