Our day was supposed to start at 9 AM, meeting the seller at his storage location so we would not take up too much time out of his Saturday. We arrived at 9:45. I can't blame this on my naturally late family, as when they loaded into the truck at our house, we were only going to be five minutes late. In our world, 5 minutes late is more of a miracle than anything else. I do hold myself accountable for adding the next 10 minutes to the lateness.
I thought would be prudent to check if I had all the necessary tools to install our brand-new Andersen Weight Distribution hitch. As it turns out, I did not. Here it is, right on page 4, and let's count the green check marks. So, we would need to stop by Home Depot on the way to grab $50 worth of tools adding another 10 minutes to our delay. This would add another 15 minutes to our delay. If you're doing the math, we started with +5 (normal Orr lateness), then +10 (me realizing I didn't have the tools), then +10 (buying the tools). That's only 25 minutes, how'd you get to 45?
The fact that we hadn't fed ourselves prior to leaving was not going to be a good idea later in the day when we knew we'd be elbows deep going through the new camper. Sandwiched between the freeway and Home Depot was a Whataburger. In my bright mind, I thought we could order online, I grab the tools, and it would be done when I got back. Of course, when you have young kids, you can inevitably expect that one will need to use the restroom at the most inconvenient time. This time it was Bryce, and it was an 'emergency'. The Whataburger order was placed, but it was drive-thru pickup only, and taking a quick glance, there were only a few dozen cars in front of us. So let’s chalk the last 20 minutes of lateness to everyone in the car, except Reese.
We do eventually make it to the trailer and meet our seller. After multiple apologies, we received the keys, a few more registration documents, and all the owner’s manuals ever made by Forest River. Seriously, I've gone through about a dozen different manuals for each of the individual components of the trailer. We thanked the seller, and before he took off, he offered to help if we needed it. It would not be long before we took him up on it.
We began to install the weight distribution hitch and ran into trouble quickly. The electronic jack at the front of the trailer has a very convenient 'On/Off' and 'Extend/Retract' set of switches. I turned it on, pressed 'Extend' to raise the trailer to latch onto the ball, and... Nothing. 'Retract'... Nothing... 'Off'... 'On'.. 'Extend'.. 'Retract'.. 'Off'.. 'Retract'.. Nothing. Something was wrong. So many questions came up as we tried to figure out what we were doing wrong. Was there a master switch that we didn't know about? Were the batteries connected properly? Was the weird inverter box in the cargo area supposed to do something? What about the panel inside the door, did it have something to do with this? We were so confused. What newbies to the camping life. Molly called her experienced brother, who quickly helped us realize, the batteries were likely dead. So, flip the truck around, hook up the jumper cables and charge away. We ended up texting the seller as well, and he graciously came back to help us, and away went my whole plan not to take up too much of his Saturday. He hooked up his car with the jumper cables so we could turn the truck around and back up to the trailer once again. With the batteries somewhat charged, we were able to finish installing the hitch and connecting the camper. During this ordeal, I received a phone call from a storage facility close to our house where we were on a wait list for a covered spot. What luck! A spot had just become available, and they were open until 7 PM that night. This is perfect. So off to Jerry's Cabinetry, where we had planned to park the camper, open the slide-outs and go through all the goods that the sellers had left. That is, if we would make it there.
Everything seemed fine pulling all 10,000 pounds of trailer behind us at first. Starting and stopping are always different pulling a trailer. I had not expected the ride on the freeway to be as nerve wracking as it was. Slowly climbing to 55 mph, we could notice that the trailer was behind us. We started experiencing small movements inside the cab of the truck. Little jolt here, small push there, but nothing too terribly alarming to begin. I remained at 55 mph or less for the 20-minute drive to Jerry's shop and finally understood the meaning of 'White Knuckle Driving'. In fact, I had a moment of panic during the drive. In all the chaos of getting connected, I could not remember if I had replaced the locking pin on the hitch before we left. After a few miles I figured, if it wasn't there, we were highly unlikely to still have a trailer behind us.
We made it to Jerry's shop safely and backed into the parking lot. Getting ready to unhitch the trailer, I took our new keys and slid a small silver key into the coupler lock. I twisted and snap. The tip of the key remained inside the lock. Now the trailer is locked onto the hitch of the truck. Our only choice is to get some bolt cutters and cut the lock or pull the sliver out and hope there is another key on the key chain. Grabbing some needle nose pliers, I was able to pull the tip out of the lock and looking at my keys for another small silver I noticed another Master Lock key. This small black key fit cleanly into the lock and freed the coupler. Oh, if only the damage done on this day would have remained with the small break. Coincidently, we have yet to find what lock the broken key is to, but I'm sure it will present itself at an inopportune time.
We spent the next few hours unloading dishes, towels, decor, and more from the trailer. Most of it we took with us to wash at home and return later. Some found a new home into the blue dumpster. Before we hooked back up to the truck again to head to the storage unit, we re-evaluated the weight distribution mechanism. After some adjustments, we felt more confident, and it translated into a much easier ride the second time.
We arrived at the storage unit close to 4 PM. Our plan was to quickly unload the trailer, head home to feed the dog, and then meet up at CC and PaPa's house where our kids were playing with their cousins. We quickly signed the paperwork and followed a young man (who was in day 4 of this job) on a golf cart to our spot. SP23. The young man asked if we needed help backing in, and I gladly accepted (spotter #1). The next 20-30 minutes would really show the lack of experience both myself (the driver) and wife (the spotter #2) had at backing trailers into tight spots. Our trailer is 37' long, or as my neighbor Matt put it, 4.5 fence panels. It's heavy and needs a lot of space to maneuver. SP23 was not going to grant us that. In fact, SP23 was on an incline and was on gravel. I put my truck into 4WD Low, to add extra traction to help back it up the hill in the SP23. It's at this time that I also should mention, the Trailer is 8' wide, and SP23 is 10' wide. Holding the coveted roof above SP23 were steel posts, two at the front and two at the rear, marking its boundaries. Slowly I would try to back into SP23, hear a 'WOAH', pull forward and try again. The gravel played games with the 4WD as well as the trailer spitting rocks up and shifting the trailer laterally. After almost jack-knifing the truck, the call came from my two spotters to pull straight forward to help clear a steel pole in the back. As directed, I pulled straight forward until I heard a chorus of resounding "WOOOAAHHH"s.
I jump out of the truck to find the side of the trailer resting on one of the steel beams holding up the covering. How it came to rest upon said beam, only my spotters know. In fact, Day 4 guy immediately bailed and said he would go get someone else to help (no one came). There could have been some four-letter words spoken at this time, but I'm glad that I think I refrained and focused on how were we going to get it off this beam? If I pulled forward anymore, I was bound to continue deep scratches down the remainder of the trailer. If I pulled backward, I was likely to spin out again on the gravel, further damaging the side, or making it impossible to ever get it out. So, pull forward I did. I could see as I started cutting the wheel that indeed I was scratching the side, and near the end, it completely took off a rear side marker and pulled some of the fiberglass from the rear. At least it was out. And now, it was time for damage control.
Assessing the damage, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I was able to bend the fiberglass back into place, mostly, and the light could be easily replaced. This coveted covered spot, however, was no longer going to work. With Molly's help, we were able to get the truck and trailer turned around and we headed for the exit.
I had called around to multiple other storage locations the week prior, and one that came back to mind was only a few miles away. Even though they were closed on Saturday evening, as we were approaching 4:00, we tried the phone number. What luck, this other spot was available, and they would be able to meet us to open the gate!
This storage space was quite unique to others. The owner, Mike, owned a trucking company for years and the land that we would be storing the trailer was filled with ocean cargo containers. Spaced 14' apart, there would be plenty of room to maneuver and I felt much better. Mike came out to open the gate for us and greeted us warmly. He told us we could park anywhere, and if we needed more space, he had wide-open acres in the back of his property that we could put it. We settled on a nice spot between two cargo containers, and I began to back up the trailer. Mike offered to Molly to back it up if I felt uncomfortable after our first experience. However, I did just fine. Mike and Molly helped guide me back slowly until I stopped on Mike's command. At the front of each space between the containers was a 3' concrete pad, and Mike had stopped me where my stabilizer jacks would have nicely set down. Since the weight of the trailer is supposed to rest on the axels and the tongue jack, I wanted to back up a bit further so the tongue would be on the concrete. Again, I backed up until I heard the queue to stop, and I jumped out of the truck to unhitch the trailer. We put down the tire chocks, I took off the safety chains and break-away cable but left the brake light cable attached to help the electric jack. Mike noticed that when I was trying to release the coupler, I was pulling back instead of up. As I had enough experience with this coupler in the day so far, showed him I knew what I was doing. Sure, enough the lock released, and when the ball cleared the coupler, the truck started moving forward. I panicked and grabbed the first thing I could which turned out to be the break line cable. It quickly came disconnected and the truck was gaining steam. I then grabbed the tailgate in vain, like I was going to stop it. Molly had begun to run around the front of the truck to jump inside, but I beat her to it. In my haste to get the trailer unhitched, I had left the truck in drive. Who knows what was going through Mike's mind at this point, watching these people who pulled up with a damaged trailer, and now leaving the truck in drive. He was kind enough to point out that the truck would have stopped once it hit the cargo containers on the other side of the lot.
It was quite a day, and one that leaned more towards mishaps than adventures. Molly and I have both agreed that this was much better since we did not have our kids with us when we were trying to store it. First of all, for their safety, but secondly, they would never let us hear the end of it. The picture above is the boys reenacting how the truck started forward after disconnecting. We have had quite a few laughs at what was our first day with the trailer.