THE DAY AFTER THE DAY FROM HELL!

Well it's Tuesday evening. The day after we moved from site 16 to site 11. Simple enough, right. Not really. Not the way I did it.

It all started at 10 a.m. The RV that had been on site 11 had left, so it was time for us to move. We did all the usual prep things. Removed the sewer hose, turned off the water, unhooked the cable, brought in the slideout, stowed the stuff inside for the short trip to #11.

The next step was to hook up the trailer and the truck. Normally this is something I can do with Mary Ellen's guidance in maybe two tries. I knew it wasn't going to be a good day when it took me maybe ten! Finally we were hooked up and ready to pull out of 16 and head for 11. This required a tour around the campground in order to get to our new home. As I was driving down one of the roads I heard someone yelling at us. I stopped and rolled down the window. The guy told us we had a flat tire (almost). He said you better hurry up before it goes completely flat.

We managed to finally arrive and began the process of backing into our new site. We had been in a pull thru and I hadn't backed the trailer for 3 years. This became quite evident after my first 3 attempts. Finally a kindly old gentlemen (must have been 85) said, "you might want to start out on the same side of the road as your site is. Otherwise you're going to wipe out 3 or 4 RV's on the other side of the road." Turned out to be good advice. I got in on two maneuvers. Looking good.

So we began all the usual stuff required to set up including detaching the trailer from the truck. Of course I still had the issue of a flat tire on the truck. I'd deal with that later. Mary Ellen hooked up the water and the cable. I took care of the sewer hose and plugged in our electric. We were about ready to open our slideout. OOPs. After all this and a flat tire to boot, I hadn't left enough room between the slideout and our
electrical box. We were about six inches too close.

I decided to cool down and take the truck to a nearby Goodyear Store and have the tire repaired. Of course the tire was now almost completely flat. I got out my silly little cheap compressor. The one that plugs into the cigarette lighter. With my compressor it would take about 30 minutes to get enough air into it to drive. Our new neighbor apparently saw what I was attempting to do (everyone watches new arrivals), and asked me if I'd like to use a REAL compressor. He didn't actually say that, but I knew what he was thinking. In 30 seconds the tire was inflated. I hurried to the Goodyear store and answered about 25 questions before he asked me what I wanted. He said it would be about 30 minutes. I called Mary Ellen and told her. After a half hour they still weren't done. They said they were having trouble finding the cause of the flat. I called Mary Ellen again. After an hour they told me they couldn't find anything in the tire, and had no idea why it went flat. They did replace the valve stem, just in case.
After all that the guy said, "keep an eye on it". It's not easy when you're driving!

Back at the ranch, the trailer movement awaited me. Mary Ellen had everything ready. She had unhooked the water, sewer, cable and electric. That left hooking up the trailer, and of course 'keeping an eye on the tire'! After 4 up and backs, I had moved the trailer over the 6 inches needed for the slideout. Now all that remained was reconnecting all the stuff and rearranging the stuff on the inside.

What should have taken till noon wasn't completed until 5 p.m. A very long day, and I only swore twice, maybe three times. Today we finished settling in. Today was beautiful. Sun all day and the temp got up to 62.

We Skyped with Mark today, and showed him the campground. Skype is quite cool. If you haven't looked into it, check it out.

I've failed to mention the bombing each night continues this year. As I write this the Air Force has us under attack. They seem to get closer every night. "THE SOUND OF FREEDOM".

Till next time, "the town was so dull that when the tide went out it refused to come back".

jim