Well friends...
First and foremost, I am incredibly grateful for all of the helpful advice and wisdom offered. I spent most of Friday scouring various forums and other sources for additional information as I was terrified about the choices we made, concerned for safety and contemplating what on earth we would do. I quickly realized just how contentious this topic is. Rightfully so. If you see someone headed toward a situation you believe could be dangerous to them and people around them, the most humane and kind thing to do is speak up... however I also saw how quickly posts related to weight often seem to have a way of morphing into a black-hole of frustration, condescension and downright anger. I’m grateful that has not happened on this thread, however I am afraid it still could and that is something I will do my best to avoid for my own mental peace. I actually debated responding because I feared exacerbating any friction, but we feel incredibly indebted to those of you who took your time to respond so kindly and thoroughly. We learned so much from you and I wanted to let you know how things went.
Ironically, as we were on the highway heading to the CAT scales with my heart in my stomach over whether our truck was going to break in half or our back tires were going to burst (I can be a bit catastrophic with my anxieties) and over the possibilities waiting for us on the scale, a GM250 with low-profile tires cruised past us towing a triple-axle toy-hauler with a sand-rail trailered behind that! People do make... interesting... choices... but who am I to judge considering where/why we are going. Sadly, he was pulled off to the side of the highway a little further up and a distinctly burnt smell hung heavy in the area. Ugh. My heart hurt a bit for him — but how good it’s just the truck that’s injured and not a person or people.
Anywhoo, we had our weigh-in and found we were far under what I’d been invisioning, and we are comfortable with where we are in relation to axle-rating, pin and GVWR. I was actually pleasantly surprised. Though we’ve been planning on replacing the truck’s tires anyway, we found the current ones have a capacity far higher than the weight they were holding.
Knowing what we know now, would we have purchased the same TV/5er combo? No... because I prefer plenty of wiggle-room and we don’t have much of it with this set-up. Thanks to your kind assistance and our weigh information, we will be conscientious about where/what we load in the 5th and in the TV. (Look at me... using acronyms and whatnot... I actually had to look up what TV was... knew it couldn’t be television
) We believe we are capable of safely and responsibly traveling with what we have until such a time we decide to/are able to upgrade. Just no wiggling.
Thank you all again. Definitely got more than I could have anticipated out of an introductory forum - but we are so grateful for the help and information and we’re better for it.
Happy travels friends.