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“Back To The Road, Ben Stone”

I love that line from the movie “Doc Hollywood”. It fits me. I’ve been in Idaho for several months at home but now I’m back to my trailer in Pasco and getting ready to travel again. Of course, just returning to my trailer this week has been an adventure.

There was no way to work around the rain storms in Idaho. I had to leave during one. Loading up my truck to leave left me completely soaked. I looked like a drowned rat by the time I finally hit the road. Undaunted though, I tossed the wet coat in the back and cranked up the heater.

It rained for over 100 miles out through Spokane, WA. Just outside Spokane, I heard a loud clunk on the passenger side of the truck. It was too rainy and dark to see what happened until the rain finally stopped. I had lost the mirror on the passenger side of the truck. The assembly was still there but the mirror glass had taken flight. Sigh.

A few hours later, the cat and I arrived in Pasco,WA. I opened the door of my much-missed trailer and my nostrils filled with the wonderful scent and my eyes beheld a wonderfully clean home. Mother always made us clean the house before we went away on a trip. I totally understand why now.

Due to more rain, it took a couple days before I could move the trailer to a spot with better wifi signal for my work. With winter coming on, there is much more spot choice now though the park is still pretty full of full-timers. First I ran to the nearest auto parts store to replace my high-flying mirror. It seemed like a good idea to actually be able to see what I was doing. Of course the new generic mirror is not at quite the correct angle to be parallel to the ground like the old mirror was but I can live with it.

Then I disconnected everything and jacked up the front of the trailer with the electric jack to hitch up. I do have to brag here that I got the truck positioned in 1.5 shots. I hit the button on the electric hitch jack to lower the trailer onto the hitch and… nothing. Dead. It had worked only minutes earlier but now was dead. Thinking the batteries had died again, I reconnected to electric and tried again. Nothing. AAARGH! Fine, I grabbed the bar to lower it manually. Because the bar fits into the top, it hits my tanks so you have to constantly reposition it. You can’t just do one smooth move. Rackas frackas. I decided to peek at the jack fuse inside the battery box. The fuse was fine but the dang fuse holder was melted and broken. Sheesh! OK, here I cheated and did what you aren’t supposed to do. I held the pieces together to operate the jack and get hitched up. A little smoke and it was done.

I pulled out smoothly and drove through my new chosen spot which is only 20 feet from the wifi repeater and has excellent signal strength. It costs a bit more in this section but unlike the other, electric is included, I got to pull-thru, and it is away from both the freeway in front and construction behind the park. It’s worth it at $350 a month.

I cheated again with the electric jack, unhitched, and connected all the utilities. Ready to flop down inside, I noticed I had no electric despite being hooked up and breakers set. I took a device outside to see if the 110V receptacles were working at the post and they were. I started to get worried that my cheating had somehow blown the AC. A little bird told me to try hooking up to the electric at the site behind me. I luckily carry an RV electric extension cord. Sure enough, it worked at the site behind me. A quick run to the clubhouse for help and I discovered I had chosen the one site in the park where the 30 amp service is down and they have not been able to figure out why for months. Lucky me. Ah well. They don’t mind me using the electric at the vacant site behind me so I’m not moving.

Like I said, it has been an adventure.

1 comment to “Back To The Road, Ben Stone”

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