RE: Towing & parking Questions
First thing, take your new purchase to a big parking lot and practice backing up and parking from both directions. I took some bottles and practiced parking between the bottles. Expect that this practice will take several hours-I used a community college parking lot on a Sunday.
Second, get a swaybar. It took me 3 years and one mountain trip to realize that these are one of the most important additions to trailering. Not only does it eliminate swaying on a narrow mountain road with a crosswind, it allows your engine to not have to work as hard pulling it straight ahead.
Third, look into a cane air filter for your truck. Fram is selling them on it's website. You'll add about 15-25 hp to your engine's capacity and add about 1-2 mpg to your gas mileage.
My trailer weighs about 5000. My Expedition is rated to tow about 6100 and I get about 10-11 mpg trailering. This summer I went over Loveland Pass, Fremont Pass, Monarch Pass and Red Mountain Pass-all are 11,300+ feet. I was in second gear going up and down and I was going 25-30 miles/hour but the truck did fine.
Make sure your truck has a transmission cooler, if not, Camping World has some good aftermarket ones.
Be careful going down hills. I went down from Alamogordo to White Sands, NM, in 3rd and cooked my truck brakes. Go down in second gear, you'll top out at about 40 miles/hour that way. Also,although your truck has ABS, your trailer has drum brakes and they will lock up. So watch for rainslicked roads-I saw an Expedition/Airstream that rolled/jack-knifed coming down Raton Pass.
Sounds like I do mountains pretty slow, doesn't it? Well, I figure you can really wreck your trip pretty quick if you're not careful. I try to pullover whenever it's safe to allow the cars behind me to pass.
And another thing, make sure you carry a tire gauge and check the trailer tires every couple of days, especially if you are changing altitudes and the temps are going up or down. Your tires have a load rating that matches your gvwr of your trailer. Underinflated tires get hot and blow out. As a precaution, I'd get a jack that will work on the trailer. Don't count on your truck jack to work either.
Kinda wordy I know....just trying to save you some head/heartache
