Saturday, June 28, 2014 Cadillac Ranch Bluff, UT to Holbrook, Az

This morning I was up and out by 7:30 am.

The trailer was still hooked up from yesterday and I hadn’t set up the sewer, so it was pretty easy to get out on the road early.

I headed down Hwy 191 with the goal of reaching Eagar, AZ.  Hwy 191 turns a few corners along the way, but I had planned on taking it all the way to Eagar.

With the first turn of Hwy 191, I heard a scraping noise as I turned. I assumed it was just my the chains from my hitch dragging on the ground. I pulled off the road and looked over the hitch. Everything looked fine. I used my restroom and continued down the road. I didn’t look under the trailer.

I continued down the road close to 100 miles. A lot of vehicles passed me. The speed limit was 65 mph, but I tend to keep it at 50-55 mph. Then a truck passed. A girl was hanging out the window. She was pointing at me to pull off the road. She looked concerned. I had no idea what she was saying, my window was up and my cab blocks out a lot of noise.

Hwy 191 is fairly narrow and for the most part lacks shoulders. I reached a farm road with in a few minutes and pulled over.  I looked over the hitch, it was fine. I looked at the tires thinking that may be I had a flat, they were fine. Everything looked fine, but again I didn’t look under the trailer.

I pulled back out onto the road. Again I heard the scrape. Again I thought it was the chains.  I went another 35 miles down Hwy 191 mentally ranting about how cruel it was for the girl to drive me off the road for no good reason.  I was thinking about how I was going to lecture her on this blog about how irresponsible and dangerous her actions had been. I figured she just thought that I was going too slow and should get off the road. Mentally I went on and on in my OCD way.

Then I reached a traffic circle. My GPS told me to take the 3rd exit.  I apparently wasn’t thinking or higher powers intervened and I took the second exit.  It was a fairly immediate “oh crap” moment.  To my right was a school, but there was a gate a crossed the parking lot. To the left was a neighborhood. Straight in front of me was a long and narrow road with no other turn offs.  The neighborhood road to my left looked like it looped around, so I took my chance and turned.

When I am lost, I put my truck window down.  As I was turning there was a horrible scraping noise. Now I knew that it wasn’t my chains.  I continued to the next corner which was only about 100 ft after the initial turn. I turned left again. There was a family out in their yard.  The unfamiliar RV in their neighborhood and the loud scraping noise got their attention.  I sort of pulled over to the side. The gentleman of the family came over as I got out and commented on my loud scraping noise. I again looked at the hitch and chains. Everything was fine, so I got down on my hands and knees in the middle of the road and looked under my trailer. One of the metal bars that support my black tank was broken and hanging down onto the road.

My mind went blank. I was at a complete loss of what to do. I even forgot that I had Good Sam for situations like this.

Fortunately the gentleman had come over to the trailer. He asked me to move it closer to the curb. I did as instructed. He brought a tarp over and placed it on the ground. Then without any question he slid under the trailer on his back. Before I knew it he was telling me that he had some scrap metal that he could fix it with.  He left and went around his house. In a few minutes he was back with a piece of scrap metal, wire and duct tape.  He patched up the rail and we discussed my options.  He advised that I change my route to go to Holbrook stating that Holbrook is a tourist town, so there are several RV repair shops.  We also discussed the roads. Hwy 77 was a thin line on the map. He reassured me that the road had just recently been re-paved, but it was going to be about a 2 hour drive.

Once his patch job was done, I crawled under and looked at it. The bar was patched together, but it wasn’t supporting the tank. I was really worried. I thought about just calling Good Sam, but I didn’t. I thanked the gentleman and headed out Hwy 15 to 77.  There was little traffic and the roads were smooth. I hit a few bumps and was fretted about the black tank dropping down. I pulled over a couple of times to check and everything was still together.

As I entered Holbrook there was a truck stop on the right just before reaching I-40 or old Route 66.  I pulled in and looked at the bottom of the trailer again. There was now a 1/2 inch gap between the bottom of the trailer and the top of the black tank. I was concerned.

I returned to the truck and searched on my phones for RV parks. It’s good that my phone was working. I would have never found the RV park without it and driving around in search of one was not a good idea.

I located two RV parks.  I called the KOA and checked the price. I’m usually not a KOA fan but the online reviews stated “best RV park in the area” and it looked like it was close to town. A man answered the phone. He was nice, professional and polite. The rate was $35.00/night and there was an RV repair shop service that would come to the park.  It sounded good. $35 is more than I like to pay, but I wanted reliable internet and the whole resort atmosphere to help somewhat calm my rattled nerves.

The GPS showed that I could continue on Hwy 77 to get to either of the RV parks. I pulled out of the truck stop and continued south on Hwy 77 past the ramp to I-40 west, then under the highway overpass only to find that the road ended.  There was just enough room to make a U-turn. Generally not an easy task when pulling the trailer, but fortunately was completed with ease. This meant that I had to get onto I-40 west to get to the RV parks.  I was less than enthused. I don’t like driving on the interstate with the trailer and knowing that the tank was starting to drop shook me a little more. So I had a discussion with the trailer. “8 more minutes, 8 more minutes, you can do it just 8 more minutes” and pulled onto the highway.

The KOA was just the next exit. The road was very nice and smooth. I arrived at the RV park with in minutes and checked in for two nights knowing that the repair work would most likely not be done today.  While checking in I was provided with a business card for the RV repair company.

I called the company before moving my trailer to my site.  The phone was answered by a guy stating “hello”. No business name. So I launched into what I needed trusting that I had called the right number. After a short discussion he stated that someone would come out and look at it, but he didn’t specify when. I assumed that he meant that it would be sooner than later.

I went about trying to hook up, but ran into more difficulties.  The compartment that holds all of my boards, tire blocks, jacks etc was stuck shut. Items must have shifted and were blocking the lock. I moved on to hooking up the electric and water. Then I tried to un-hitch, but I needed boards to level out the trailer. I returned to the compartment. I leaned into it, pushed on it etc. Finally I sat down on my ice chest and pushed on the key as hard as I could. The lock ground and then turned. (YAY).  I was able to get to boards and nearly level the trailer.

I continued on to un-hitch.  My hitch has a locking component that comes down over the ball. It is frequently cantankerous. Today it really was. It would not come apart. I jacked it up. I put it down and jacked it up again, several times. I moved the truck back a little. Nothing was helping. Finally after 30 minutes of fighting with it, it came apart.

I was able to finish hooking everything up.

My stomach was growling, because as usual I hadn’t really eaten and it was 2:15 pm.  There was no sign of the repair people.  I caved and called. He said that I could go get food and he would meet me there at 3:00 pm.

I drove down the street, quick ordered food, scarfed it down and returned to the trailer by 2:50 pm.

I hate rushing to eat. When I reached the trailer, I noticed that I had missed a call. The repair guy had been to my trailer without me there. I called him back and we discussed the trailer. It was agreed that it had to be taken care of or the black tank would fall out.  8 o’clock Monday morning was scheduled for the repair work to be done.

After getting off of the phone I went out and put a couple of spare jacks under my black tank to help prevent it from dropping.

Needing to work out some frustration I set to work on my camera. The UV filter was stuck on my 70-200 mm lense. I have tried everything suggested on-line to get it off. As a last resort I got out the hammer and screw driver. I placed the sharp end of the screw driver against the filter and taped on the handle end of the screwdriver with the hammer. Then I tapped harder. The filter would not break. With some manipulating the filter glass came out of its metal ring. The metal ring is still stuck on the camera, but at least the filter is gone. The lense is still having problems, but not a bad as when the filter was on it.

After this I checked in on Facebook and then ran to Safeway for a few items, returned to the trailer to write this blog and have a much-needed adult beverage.

There is still a part of me that would like to find storage for the trailer and to continue on home with my truck and cats. I still have 2300 miles to go and pulling the trailer terrifies me.