The long long long trailer. I stole that one from Lucy and Desi, I need a better name.
Not working out like I planned. It wasn’t that complicated a plan, take the travel trailer to work, leave Seattle around 2 Friday afternoon, travel 180 east to Moses Lake, spend the night there. Leave Saturday morning and head for Butte, MT a 6+ hour drive and finish up on Sunday with a 4 hour drive through the North gate to Fishing Bridge RV Park in Yellowstone NP. Well I got off nearly on time. But then things started going wrong. Seattle Traffic, the hour drive to Snoqualmie pass took almost 2 hours. Traffic finally cleared out but then we got stuck in a 1 hour backup trying to cross the Columbia River. Deja Vu, I got stuck in that same backup up two years ago trying to get to the DK Glacier NP Meetup. Why can’t we finish road projects in Washington? Finally arrived at the campground about 3 hours late. Didn’t even drop the trailer. Just leveled it out, opened the slider, ate a tuna sandwich and went to bed.
Saturday dawned sunny, bright and full of promise. We had our cereal, checked out and we were on our way. Passed through Spokane and kept on going. Crossed into Idaho, stopped to pick up a few forgotten supplies and an lunch and we were off again. On through Coeur d’Alene on onward towards Yellowstone. Stopped in Wallace, ID for gas. Nicked the edge of the concrete cap on the gas island. No big deal, everything looks OK. Just into Montana, 32 miles later, that tire spreads itself to bits and takes off 8 foot of trailer trim. OK, it’s major, but not earth shattering, I’ve changed a tire before.
Missing trim on slider over blown tire
Well, not like this tire. The truck’s tire iron might be for the same size nuts, but these are kind of decorative and have a tall cap on the end the the wrench doesn’t fit down the nut far enough to engage the flats and turn the nut. I manage to use a socket from my tool set to remove the nuts. Well sort of works, I get one loose, but I can’t get the socket to fit down on the other nuts because of the collar on the axle bearing. OK, big decision time, we’ve got to drop the trailer and go in search of the right tools.
Off we go, east on I-90, first big berg is St, Regis, MT. Well there’s a couple of gas stations and a grocery store. No luck, they tell me that there is a NAPA and a True Value in the next town, Superior, only 13 miles away. We race there, only to find that the NAPA has already closed for the day (forgot about Mountain Time). A guy in the bar next door tells me that there’s a hardware store in the basement of the local grocery store up the hill. Go up the hill and down the stairs. I ask for a 13/16 lug wrench, they look at me as if I’m a bit crazy (OK a lot crazy). Turns out they actually had one, the kind with a crossed bar with 4 hex recesses at the end of each bar. I hold up the nut I thought to bring with me, he holds the tool up, 1st one is too big, second one is too big, 3rd one is too big, twists the second one back to me, no I need to check that one over there, it fits! Twentydollars later I’m on my way back to the trailer, 25 miles away.
Break the nuts loose, it’s easy with the right tool. Now try to jack the trailer up with the pick-up jack, not going to happen, get a couple of 4x4’s under it. It’s up high enough to get the old wheel off, but not high enough to get the spare tire back on. Meanwhile every Semi headed east is whipping past us at 65Mph blowing the trailer sideways. OK, let’s see how far we can ger on 3 wheels. Hook the trailer back up, pull the chocks and get back on the highway. Don’t get a mile and a half before blue smoke is billowing off the remaining tire, pull off the road a little further this time. Now where is the stack of 2x6’s I use to drop the lift on. Oh crap, I left it back where we were stopped last time. Hike a mile and a half back down the freeway find the block and lug it back.
My wife suggested pulling the trailer further off of the highway, (onto the quicksand I kept sinking into on the way for the block), so I pull it over some more. Using the larger block and the 4x4 I try to jack it up again. No luck, I run out of lift before I get the whelk high enough. Then I recall some hack from YouTube about pulling the other wheel up onto a couple of leveling pads. Lower the jack and pull the trailer forward onto a couple of levelers, add a couple of levelers to out jacking stack and I finally get up high enough to get the tire on. Tighten the nuts, drop it back down, finish tightening the nuts and start cleaning up. Then a couple drops by to offer a hand, a bit too late but welcome enough.
We pull back onto the highway sure we’re really on the way now. Just over 25 miles later, the new spare starts to shred itself. Well, I’m not stopping on the side of the road again. Limp along down to the next exit, see that this time some motorist has pulled in behind me with their blinkers on too. I think I see a sign on the other side of the highway for some establishment. I’ll pull in there and leave it while I get a tire or something. It’s not just closed, but the parking lot is blocked. I pull into the driveway and stop. Get out to look at the damage and see that the driver behind me is the same couple that stopped earlier. They haul trailers back and forth for a living. They tell me that trailering is a steep learning curve and I’m not doing too badly. We decide to leave the trailer there and seek out a new tire. Lesson to be learned here, take all the damaged tires to the dealer at once…
So we grabbed our clothes, the electronics and headed east into the dark in hopes of finding a hotel and then getting the tire replaced. Turns out a lot of exits on the interstate in Montana have “No Services” signs posted near the highway exits. It was twenty miles before we saw our first services sign, it was a tiny hotel, casino, and RV park with no vacancies. Back onto the road again, 15 more miles and real signs of civilization, the hotels there were booked and they weren’t aware of any vacancies anywhere. It is Labor Day Weekend after all. Another 5 miles down the road and there’s an armload of hotels at this exit. We pull into the first one, a La Quinta, the night clerk took pity on us and called every place she could think of. Seven or eight calls later, she found a place 5 miles away with one room left and they would hold it for us. That night clerk made us check the room out first. By this time it was 10PM and we were exhausted and hungry. The room had a bed and hot water, Paradise. Found a nearby chain restaurant, ate dinner and got back to the hotel and tried to fall asleep. Well, the bed wasn’t exactly Paradise.
The clerk had suggested we part on the side of the hotel where there was more room for the pickup. I managed to pick the darkest corner of the lot for the night… After breakfast, as I loaded the truck, I notice that the bed cover was open. Yep, someone had helped themselves to my tool box and tools and the half full can of gas back there. Along with a box of furniture blankets, bungee cords and some ratchet straps…
I’m less than 48 hours into this vacation and it’s already a nightmare. Stay tuned there’s more to come.
