Follow along with us as we travel the country with Dingo, Shelia, Peanut and Polkadot.
If you don’t want to read through the whole travel blog (although you really should), here’s our latest post:
- A Challenging Start Part 2 – A Tale of Mixed-fortunes
When we last left our intrepid explorers, they were heading North on I-95 …After setting up in the dark the night before, we were looking forward to an earlier arrival and relaxing evening. Unfortunately, 2 hours before we had the chance to unwind – “beep … beep … beep” – the low tire warning went off in RV. Fortunately, we have installed pressure sensors on all of RV’s tires (this one). Unfortunately, I thought it was the low battery warning on the walkie-talkie (we use these tell each other it’s time to stop for gas or “Hey!, Look at that!”). By the time I figured out that it was the tire, it was completely flat. Fortunately, it was one of the rear duallys and double-fortunately, it was the outer tire.
Our fortune continued as this all occurred just a couple of miles from our next gas stop at one of the many Loves travel centers along the Interstate and as Loves bills themselves as RV-friendly I felt confident that we could get the flat swapped with the spare and be on our way without overmuch delay. Fortune, however, being fickle thumbed it’s nose at us along with the folks in the Loves service center who assured us that not only could they not work on an RV but that we also could not use their lift or jacks to assist in our cause. Apparently the extent of Loves RV-friendliness is maintaining small, and in many cases rather nasty, fenced areas for puppies to poop and selling crappy fried food.
Thwarted in our attempts at a quick and easy resolution we started examining our options which were to either call for help via our RV Roadside Assistance or simply change the tire ourselves – after all, I’ve changed many a tire in my life and, although I’d never dealt with a dually or an 11,500+ pound vehicle, I felt confident in my ability handle something this basic and really didn’t want to sit waiting for someone to come and do what seemed like nothing more than helping me keep my hands from getting dirty.
Ah Fortune … you bitch! Turns out that jacking up the rear of a class-c RV is something that I hadn’t considered. The first challenge was that the only jack I had access to was one of the two that I use to stabilize the rig and keep it from bouncing around every time someone takes a step or a dog lays down. These jacks each have a 5,000 pound capacity and, fortunately, enough rise distance to get the tire off the ground. Unfortunately, they’re not pump jacks but rather the screw type. This in and of itself isn’t an issue as I usually just put a socket on my battery-powered drill which is able to provide enough torque to secure the jacks with enough pressure to keep us from rocking about. The drill wasn’t going to cut it this time though. And if just screwing of the jack up wasn’t enough, Fortune decided that the only point on the frame that was suitable for jacking was a foot-and-a-half beyond the side of the RV and framed about with various drain pipes and the undersides of storage cabinets. We’ll knuckles be damned, I set to raising and eventually had enough clearance to get the tire off.
Fortune, was not to be beaten so easily however … Did I have a lug wrench? Yes. Did I have a lug wrench that would reach 13 inches to get at the lugs? You know I didn’t. But someone, something, fate, karma, luck, providence, clean-living, whatever decided that it was time for Fortune to take a kick in the teeth and as it turned out, dare I say fortunately, there was a Harbor Freight directly across the street! Laura hopped in the Nero and sped off to get an adequately sized lug wrench. But Fortune although down, was not out. Ironically “out” would also be the term one could use to describe Harbor Freights supply of deep-set lug wrenches.
I was, however, determined to win this fight and so I journeyed myself across the street of fate and lo, it no longer mattered that they had not the tool for which we quested as I would put myself forward and search deep into the stocks. And I did come to the shelves of sockets and of bars extension. And I then builded me a wrench of lugs supreme. And I took it back to the battle and was victorious.
And Fortune was defeated.
And I was filthy.
