April 10, 2008

What an auspicious day. Not only is it our son David’s 23rd birthday, but also the day we have targeted to leave on our shakedown cruise. We didn’t get as much done before we left as we hoped. Much of our gear (Dave—“You’re taking what?!!!!”, Pam—“This is an essential requirement!”) is in boxes on the floor of the fifth wheel, waiting for us to sort through it and put in away when we get to Georgia. We ran errands in the morning and hoped to get started around 2pm.

Hoped is the operative word! We weren’t ready to hitch up until almost 7pm. By then it had started raining and was about 39 degrees.
Pam took the more difficult (read that as drier) job of backing the truck up to the hitch, while Dave guided her back and operated the landing gear. We were finally hitched. We did a pretty skilled job, considering it is the first time we did it.

We were finally ready to go!!

Uhhh, Houston--we have a problem.

One of the important checks after hitching up and before taking off is checking to see if the tail lights are working. They were. But the brake lights and turn signals of the fifth wheel were not. Dave spent about 20 minutes in the rain looking at everything that might have caused the failure, including filing the contacts on the trailer light hookup with Pam’s only emery board. Nothing worked.

Dave’s solution—let’s go anyway. Understand, it is now about 10 pm in the pouring rain. (We would probably not make it 20 miles without being picked up and ticketed.)

Pam’s brain was going “danger, danger, Will Robinson!”

The ultimate solution was to unhitch and go back to our empty apartment with our tails between our legs. (Thank goodness we have the apartment until the end of May.) Unfortunately, Dave had driven the rig about 200 yards towards the storage lot’s exit. So, this time Pam stood in the pouring rain and directed Dave’s first long distance backing up, around a corner and back to our spot as two other trucks coming into the lot waited very patiently. Admirable job on Dave’s part.

By the time we got home, Dave had a battle plan. After he tucked Pam into the AeroBed at midnight, he went to WalMart and bought a volt meter. Of course, he already has a volt meter, but has no idea where it is! At 2 am he came to bed and said the problem was in the truck, not the trailer. It was either a blown fuse or a bad relay. Probably a better place to have the problem then the trailer.

And day 1 ends.