We had a pretty long drive today; long for us that is. It is about 275 miles from Waynesboro, VA to Strasburg, PA. We got an early start and that served us well at the end of the day when it took the better part of 2 hours to get unhitched and set up.
We really had an uneventful trip. Weather was good, traffic was light, and for the most part the roads were in excellent condition. We even had an easy refueling stop at Flying J. We stopped for lunch at the Pennsylvania Welcome Center and Gene had a nice conversation with the driver of the 18-wheeler parked next to us. He was from Tennessee so we had to speak and found out that he is interested in buying an RV. Gene gave him a few pointers and then we were on our way. Our luck was running so well that in the construction zone we didn’t even have to change lanes. How often does that happen? I’d say it was a miracle. A MAAX truck passed us and on the back was “Enjoy Everyday.” I was moved by that and took the opportunity to count the blessings of this day. We found the campground and pulled along side our site. The day took an awkward turn after that.
I’m not exactly sure when it started to rain. There was suppose to be only a 20% chance of rain today. Maybe that meant 20% of the day it would be raining. Whatever, it poured along with lightening.
We had to back into our site. We haven’t had much practice backing. Although the campground map looks like the intersecting street near our campsite is straight, it isn’t. Plus there is a large tree 2 inches from the pavement which the road curves around. Perhaps the easiest way to get a good angle to back into our site would have been to pull into that intersecting road and instead of pulling forward around the curve and tree, just pull up in the grass. That was impossible to do without running over all the little yard lights stuck in the ground at the edge of the road. Gene pulled forward and backed up over and over in the precious little space available, inching his way toward the center of our site. When Gene’s nerves were spent, I got behind the wheel. Back and forth; back and forth. Oh, did I mention that the water was on the site behind ours forcing us to back up as far as possible in order for our hose to reach? There was a tree on one side and the electrical box on the other. With our slides out we are about 6 inches from the tree and about 3 from the electrical box. Cozy. And did I mention the hole that is about where the rear tire should be? When we finally got in the site we were so out of level that the bubble wouldn’t even show on the side-to-side level. We put out leveling blocks and unhitched.
The second miracle of the day occurred when I noticed that, even though our kitchen slide would clear the tree, the slide awning bracket would not. The only thing to do was hitch up and pull forward about an inch. And all the while the rains came down. When hitching up, one of my jobs is to raise (or lower) the Montana to the appropriate height to meet the hitch. I was busy doing that while Gene was pulling the truck around. The third miracle of the day occurred when the truck didn’t make a hole in the front end cap when Gene backed under the Montana before it was up high enough to clear the truck rails. It did make and awful sound however, but it was drowned out by the thunder.
We hitched up, pulled forward an inch onto another set of blocks and felt relieved that this ordeal is almost over. Before we unhitched, Gene went around to make sure the slide would clear the tree. That was when he noticed that we had failed to get one of the chocks out from under a tire. The tire, and its share of the 14,000 pounds of trailer, was sitting up on the wedge of the chock. Return to the truck, back off the leveling blocks, remove the chock, pull onto the leveling blocks. Finally, I think we can safely unhitch.
God is good all the time--saving us from one disaster after another all day long.
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