RV Adventures

When we returned home after our Spring trip, the RV went into storage. It sat for almost three months while we did our part to stay safe. Our trips out consisted mostly of the grocery store and hardware store. New York’s COVID-19 numbers went from high to low and remain low for which we are thankful.

Towards the end of July, we decided bring the Blue Flame home for what seems to be never ending repairs and improvements.

We also decided to venture out some and did a couple of quick mid-week camping trips close to home with trusted friends. You have to pick your pandemic buddies wisely! We did.

The entire Northeast has been pretty good with COVID numbers, so we decided to venture further. We headed off to Maine to visit our friends Paul & Kay. If you have been reading our blog for a while, you know they are good RVing friends of ours that we met three years ago in Arizona.

After many years of full-time RVing, Paul and Kay are now self-building a sticks-and-bricks home. This was a perfect opportunity to visit them and for Jim to get out his framing hammer. When we got there, the site for the house was ready, other than that nothing had been done. Over the course of the week, a lean-to addition was put onto their shed, they set all the foundation forms, did all the under slab plumbing (passed inspection on the first try!), back filled outside and inside of the forms, and leveled the inside to get it ready for insulation that will go under the concrete floor for heat. Pretty good progress for six days. Oh yes, the guys even had time to fire up Paul’s sawmill and make some lumber for the house.

Thanks Paul & Kay for the hospitality and friendship! A good time was had!

Now that we are past Labor Day, what to do next? We had hoped to head southwest, but don’t feel comfortable doing that at this point in time. Instead, we are doing a repeat. Wait for it…Jim is going to work the sugar beet harvest in the Red River Valley again. This will be his third time driving a truck for a farmer out of Grand Forks, North Dakota.

So we have started on a short (for us) Fall trip.

Our first major destination is Michigan. It’s been a while since I have been back to my home state to visit my aunts, uncles and cousins.

My Aunt Ruth (my Mom’s sister) and Uncle Tom had us over to their house a few times.

Aunt Ruth arranged for the immediate family to gather at their favorite restaurant, outdoor seating of course. A good time was had by all.

On Sunday, we headed out for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Our 8:00 a.m. departure didn’t go off as smoothly as we had hoped. Soft ground, rain, and slick grass made for this.

When the leveling jacks were raised for our departure, ALL the tires sunk into the soft earth. Yes, we were stuck, all 35,000 pounds of us. When Jim tried to move forward, all the tires did was spin. The ground was a little soft when we pulled in, but heavy rain the night before we left did us in.

Let me just say, Jim never panicked. Neither did I. I had full confidence in my husband’s abilities that we would get out. But how?

ATTEMPT 1:

The jacks were retracted and Jim attempted to drive us out. It almost worked. However, the rear of the RV slid towards the driver’s side.

PRE-ATTEMPT 2:

Let’s try again, The jacks were put down and the tires were lifted off the ground again. This time Jim discovered that when we slid, a board was wedged between the two rear tires on the rear driver’s side.

Jim grabbed his valve stem tool and took out the tire valve. Soon 100 psi of air was whooshing into the atmosphere. Again, he got out the persuader (aka hammer) and whacked at the board stuck between the tires. Finally, success!!! The board was out. And we had a flat tire.

Fortunately, our rig has a built-in air compressor. Jim dug out the air hose and inflator valve. I got the easy job of standing there for 10 minutes, squeezing the inflator until we were back up to 100 psi of air.

At this point, Jim sarcastically remarked “The only thing that could ‘improve’ this situation is if it was raining.” Nope, not going to go there.

ATTEMPT 2:

Now we were ready to go. The RV was lifted, boards put underneath the tires again, and we added scrap shingles that were laying in the vicinity, hoping they would give more traction. The jacks were raised and Jim hit the gas. Success!

ATTEMPT 3:

That this point we decided to call in reinforcements. I texted my cousin Tom to see if he could give us a tow assist. Yes! Thirty minutes later he showed up with his BIG GM Denali and a tow strap. He hooked his hitch up to one of our tow hooks. Ready, set, GO! TRUE Success! All it took was a little extra oomph to get us out of the field and onto the driveway.

Where’s the picture of the final pull out? I can do better than a picture, how about a short 1 minute video with all the highlights? Here you go. You can also view the video at https://youtu.be/uULngj862yg.

So, after two hours, we were out of our ruts. Phew. For those taking notes, the items we used to achieve this WITHOUT having to call a tow truck are:

• 12 square boards to go under our jacks (whenever they build a new house in our neighborhood, Jim grabs the cut offs from the LVL beams that go over the garage doors. He trims them up and presto…we have blocks that fit under our jack pads.)
• Miscellaneous 4″ x 4″ beams, around 16 inches long that we also carry with us.
• Scrap lumber from Tom’s property.
• Scrap shingles from Tom’s property.
• Tire valve removal tool.
• Hammer
• 20 foot air hose (we do carry a portable compressor too, but using that that would have taken longer to inflate the tire than the 10 minutes the onboard compressor took).
• Air inflator.
• A piece of cardboard to lay on (now destroyed, we need to find another piece).
• Spare socks and shoes to put on since our feet were soaked.
• Tow strap (we carry one, but didn’t have to get ours out since Tom had his).
• Patience.

We are mulling over if our Jeep would have been able to give the RV the needed assist. Maybe, but we didn’t have a hitch with us. A hitch is now being added to the list of things to toss in the RV.

So, all ended well. Jim was a bit muddy, fortunately our next destination had a laundry facility. And we are now “up north” in Michigan ready to continue on. We are due in Red River Valley on September 28 for the October 1 start of the harvest. Let’s hope the rest of the trip is a bit more uneventful.