Rain and wind and heading back home

The rain came down all night. You can really hear it in a 24 foot travel trailer and it definitely adds to the feeling of warmth and coziness. To think that some people use white noise machines or 8 hour YouTube loops of rain to help them sleep.

Of course I awoke at dawn with two thoughts – ‘man it’s been raining like crazy, it is going to be muddy out there’ and ‘time to head over to the lodge for (well, you get the idea)’. Opened the door and the rain had subsided, and now a strong wind sailed through the barren fall trees. It felt good – breathing in the cool air and just moving outdoors as the morning creeped over the horizon.

At 9 I decided to pull up stakes. Figured I would take care of the interior items first. Securing items as tightly as possible in cupboards, putting blankets in hideaway spot under the futon and leaving out a freezer bag for the few refrigerator items when I got back to town.

‘AHH’ I thought – turn off the refrigerator so that it doesn’t search in vain (and massive melt down) for propane while I am hauling my rig out on to the road. Then the outside to click in to place the fan holder, disconnect electric, move up the stabilizers, etc., etc. etc.

And then my appointment with destiny: the drop hitch. I connected the safety chains, plugged in the electric power plug to the truck, reconnected the electric safety cable to the TT and then installed to tortion/stabilizer bars. I remembered that the guy at the dealer had said to link to the pivot point at the 8th link in the chain. But I couldn’t figure out the geometry of how the rotating fastener so just linked as far as I could.

As I pulled out slowly the bars clanged against the groud – hmmm bad move I thought. So pulled in front of the lodge and the campground dog, a very friendly greyhound/labrador mix came to monitor my re-jiffering of the system to attain the much needed/bottoming-out corrector 8th link.

I hit the road. Swerving hilly roads, the scare of a 14 foot high bridge (I made it) and then on to the highway. The feeling of the truck pulling the trailer is quite powerful: you definitely feel the mass, the velocity, the torque, the down-shifting transmission kicking in when going up a steeper grade. I made wide turns, I drove the speed limit, I left tons of space in order to brake… it’s a very different driving style that feels essential for the responsible and safe driving of the near 10,000 pound combined vehicle mass you are shepherding along the highway.

Got to my storage lot and instead of the wide open/ tons of space area that I had seen in my couple of trips there, now smack dab in the middle are two modular home units. So I have to loop around them to achieve a proper angle in order to reverse back in to the assigned spot. This takes many attempts. Someone told me that with your hand on the bottom of the steering wheel (i.e. 6 o’clock) that the trailer will move in the direction that your hand moves the steering wheel. This coupled with the rear view mirrors and the $270 camera I bought that’s on the trailer got me to where I needed to be. I got in and out of the cab in order to see exactly how much room I had, and ended up about 2 feet from the retainer wall.

Off with the hitch when it successfully disengaged, grab a few bags, lock it up, load up my truck and away I headed. About halfway home it struck me – the refrigerator! I had left those items…. so quick u-turn in the truck and back to the storage facility to clean out the cold items. It actually kind of felt like I was driving my old SUV now that the truck was free of the trailer – it moved and felt great driving.

I got home and the Champion generator I ordered was at my front door. So will set it up, along with my BBQ in the next week so that I ready to go in a week and a half to my next destination: Gettysburg.

#rv