Chapter 9 The Fault In Our Wiring"

Back to Liberty Trailer we went... 😕

We became recognizable fixtures by now.  The guys were funny and went out of their way to keep us happy.  I guess we were a bright spot in the middle of all those 18 wheelers.   I was the only woman there all the times we pulled in with the exception of the ladies in the office that I assumed were the owner's wife and daughter.


I was curious so, I asked, "Do you ever have lady truckers in here?"  "Well, yes we do get women truckers....... I wouldn't necessarily call them laaaaadies", was the answer.  Everyone laughed, including me.  I could only imagine!

The air conditioner had to come out to release the skin of the trailer so they could go fishing for the problem. It took a long time to find the issue.  It was a soldering joint.  Apparently, when soldering, one can pull a point in the solder which can be sharp as a needle.  This needle had worked it's way through the electrical tape surrounding it and with one tiny pin prick, we lost our running lights.  They repaired all the welds so the problem was solved. I would revisit the fuse issue in the truck at a later date under much different circumstances.

While the air conditioner frame was out, I saw how it was done.  So, when we got Sprocket home, I went to work with my Dremmel making the opening bigger for the new larger capacity a/c unit I had found.  It only took one afternoon!  I also spent several hours water sealing all the nooks and crannies underneath the trailer with tubes of roofing tar in hand. Things were looking good!


With my confidence at an all time high, I planned another trip.  I KNOW! By now you must think I'm a glutton for punishment, that I harbor some sad need to constantly fix things, you would be dead wrong. I'm very pragmatic, knowing there is a beginning, a middle, and an end to everything. This trailer just didn't seem to have an end! There is something about Aluminitus that affects your brain in such a way that hope always springs eternal.  Against all odds, and I'm about as odd as they come, facing insurmountable hurdles, believing one day, there would be a PERFECT TRIP!




It started out well .......


We drove through Franklin, TN and stopped for a new skate fitting and went on to Gatilinburg for the night.  We spent the next day at Dollywood, of course!




The two of us took in The Lost Sea tour, an underground cavern lake, the largest in North America.






We stayed overnight in Roanoke, VA and visited a friend.  The color was beautiful on the hillsides and we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves.




Our trip paused for a tour of Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. This is a completely worthwhile destination occupying a beautiful mountain top with lovely grounds, gardens, plus a nice interpretive center, and ample parking.




Here is a funny size comparison that happened spontaneously!

We arrived at our campground south of Washington, DC so that we could make day trips driving or riding the train into the Capitol.  I had prearranged a tour of the Capitol Building through our Senator's office which was as informative as it was fascinating.  The hop on hop off bus tour around the city made it very convenient seeing all the monuments.




Dave and I had been at the Lincoln Memorial and when we left, I looked down and saw engraved in the step, Martin Luther King "I Have A Dream"  * I gasped* and began to cry, it just hit me that hard. I was taken by complete surprise.  Dave held my arm and asked, "Oh Honey, What's the matter?"  "Look down...", I choked.  "Oh my..." he said softly.  Other people sitting around on the steps came to see and there were gasps all around.  I had forgotten this is where the great man stood and delivered that great message.  Monuments are important for this very reason.




We had tickets for The White House Tour and were enthralled. You should go, you really should.  I purchased a little White House Christmas tree ornament inside at the gift shop.  I thought about all the First Ladies and the Presidents.  There is something very powerful about The Nation's House, put it on your bucket list.





Our bus took us to the National Cathedral, The Jefferson Memorial, and the Washington Monument.  You cannot understand the largeness of the National Mall until you have been there in person.





A side trip the next day took us to Mount Vernon which is incredibly well done.  Beautiful house and grounds plus a wonderful love story.





Years ago we would travel to New York City for business and we would always eat at Rosa's Mexicana.  It was a real treat. So, imagine our surprise many years later when we rounded a corner in Washington DC, there was Rosa's Mexicana!  We went right in.  It was late October and we were familiar with Mexico's Day of the Dead traditions. In the foyer of the restaurant there was a table with a picture of Rosa surrounded by all her favorite dishes of food.  We smiled.  The hostess asked, "Did you know Rosa?"  "Oh my yes, from New York.  She made the first chicken mole' we ever tasted. Is it on the menu ?", we asked.  "Not today but let me see what I can do....", she said.  When we sat down, the waiter brought us chicken mole', we toasted Rosa and all those happy times in New York and the happy time we were having in Washington, DC.

Another side trip led us to Colonial Williamsburg where we learned a great deal about the Revolutionary War and how is affected everyday people of the time. It was interesting and somewhat of a culture shock listening to all the reenactors who painted a very accurate portrait of life back then.






We also toured the Smithsonian Museum and saw the Hope Diamond and many lovely things. Here are just a few that I'm sure weren't available in the gift shop......




Feeling very Patriotic and proud to be Americans, we left for home.

We had been out for over two weeks in the trailer and had not a problem one!  Could this be?!


Remember the parable of counting your chickens before they hatch..... well, I had been counting with an abacus, calculator, fingers, and toes!
There is a lot to love about Arkansas, the beautiful Ozark Mountains, limestone bluffs and rambling rivers.  Forests and caves, bean fields and diamond craters, it's called The Natural State. Things to dislike are the class divide, prejudice, and the summer heat and humidity.  Some of these things may be arguable but there is one thing all Arkansans agree upon.

The current condition of Interstate 40 west of Memphis, TN


It's horrible and has been, forever. 
Construction has been going on, forever.
When will it be finished? Sometime in forever.

 
And, the section west of Memphis is the worst of the worst. 
It claimed a windshield on our car from thrown up debris during a trip to St. Louis years ago and it was about to get us again.....
We came through Memphis just fine and we had slipped over Appalachia in a snow.  Our thoughts ran along the lines of "we made it" or "we're home free"

We weren't either of those things.


WHAM!


We hit a cavernous hole and heard a very loud POP.  Damn.  I was sure one of the airbags had exploded but when the squeaking began, we pulled over. 
The frame attached to the airbag set up was broken on three sides of a square tubular steel support.


What to do?  Just when I left my acetylene torch at home.... NOT!
We limped home slowly hoping beyond hope it would hold.  Squeak squeek, squeak, squeak, squeak.... for 120 miles.....

THANKTHEGOODLORDINHEAVENITHELD

I called Buddy.  Again. We limped to the shop. Again. 🙄🙁😒😠

I was almost embarrassed.  I take good care of things and don't tear them up or use them in a hard manner.  I had no reason to feel this way, Buddy reassured me.  "The road is a rough place", he said. *no kidding* He would look at it and get back to me became so familiar I gave passing thought to needlepointing it on a pillow.  When I heard from Buddy, he gave us a choice.  Either pull the whole thing out and replace the leaf springs or rebuild and beef up the framing, these were the choices.  This was the last piece of original inherited equipment.  By this time, I was very used to raising and lowering the trailer over the jacks with the hydraulics plus it assisted in leveling the trailer. When it worked correctly, it was wonderful.  I chose the beefed up rebuild.  One more college try.....

It would be the right decision, from that point forward we never, ever, had another problem with the undercarriage.

SWEET VICTORY!

Emboldened by the prospect of worry free travel, I planned a cross country trip to Los Angeles, CA to spend Christmas with my cousins, Don and Judy, who sold their spot in Texas and were now trying out southern Arizona for the winter .  It would be a Route 66 Trip!  The Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, Impact Crater, Carlsbad Caverns, Roswell, were all on the list and the list was getting bigger!

We would soon retrace the path that we towed our diamond in the rough home from Southern California..... this was going to be fun!

 

Chapter 8 "Back to The Shop"

I waited two full weeks before heading back to Liberty Trailer. It was too soon. 

Buddy looked at Sprocket again and it was determined after the requisite disclaimer, "Now, we didn't put this in here so, we think new air bags would be the way to go", and that's the way we went.  Having air bags of unknown origin and age was a non plussing thought. I had planned another camping trip much closer to home in the Spring to go Trout fishing. We would travel to Mountainview, AR  once home to my Great Grandmother. Did I tell you I'm a Hillbilly? I come by it honestly not by choice. 

I spent the time leading up to the trip finishing up the interior decor. 













This was the campground spread ...




Almost immediately upon setting up, two large Class A motor home buses towing full size vehicles pulled in next to us. Within 10 minutes they were all over marveling at our little tin tenement. "Can you SLEEP in there?!", was the first comment. "Of course, you can", I said. "OMG! You have a bathroom with a Shower!", was the next retort. "And I feel air conditioning!", was another. People can be amazed so much fits into such a tiny package. I've learned to be patient. 

The next day the air conditioner died. Dead as a door nail. Kaput. Finis. 

This was another piece of inherited hardware ..... 😕
Being that we were in Arkansas, you can throw a rock and hit a half dozen Walmarts with one shot. Even with bad aim and not really trying. So, off to the Walmart we went. The replacement 110v a/c unit was easy to find and cheap. Apparently, other things were on sale, including me. I caught the eye of a Genuine Hillbilly who sidled up to me and said ala Goofy from Disney *if I'm lying I'm dying*, "Gosh, ur shur purty!" 

OHGOODLORDINHEAVENDELIVERMENOW

I turned, walked away, and he followed. What was it? Was I clean and had on makeup? What was the criteria here? I had on a wedding ring. Whose brother cousin uncle daddy was this? Not mine! Dave rounded the corner, and walking toward him, I did the bug eyed side glance thing....

"Oh Honey, Did you find what you were looking for!?", Dave greeting me a little too loudly.  Hillbilly stopped with the expression of pondering his next move, pause, pause, then turned and shuffled off. 

"Thanks Sweetheart", I said. "Anything for you, Sweet Cheeks", Dave said. 

Back to the trailer with the new a/c. It was too small so, we had to stuff towels around the opening. It would do. I resolved to get a better unit when we got home. 
We were happy and enjoyed a tour of Blanchard Springs Caverns and the Reptiles at the campground office. Oh yes, you never know what you'll find.....





And, Winner, Winner, Trout Dinner!



Funny, when only one thing goes wrong you brush it off. In many ways, the abnormal becomes normal, and it tends to skew your reality. You keep hoping all will go well, maybe this would be The Day. 

It was not The Day. 

On the way home, going around a mountain curve, the trailer leaned again and did not straighten up. 

*HEAVY SIGH*

Here we go, again........🙄

Back to Liberty Trailer. Buddy scratched his head. What was determined this time was we had the water balloon affect. Squeeze one end and the other pooches out. Okay.  They would abandon the nitrogen canister altogether and install two 12v pumps with each one dedicated to one air bag. Independent air bag suspension. Sounded good...... but would it WORK?!
The time to test it came in September of that year attending our first Vintage Trailer Rally in Stephensville, TX. I hoped for better weather than we got. It was hot. Still well into the 90's. We would take the scenic route through eastern Oklahoma and down into north Texas. The curvy roads would test the new undercarriage work. Paris, TX was on our list of places nearby to see, this would turn out to be providential..... but much later.....

Lo and Behold the trailer seemed to do well, suspension wise.

VICTORY!

But my pop sickles melted before we stopped for gas. Sticks in bags of liquid. As in, all the way! This had been an intermittent problem that we hadn't quite figured out, "Why would the refrigerator stop working at random?" After all, it was new!

Wouldn't it be nice to have a trip, just once, without a PROBLEM!?  Ha, ha. A problem. Just one. Hahahahaha!

We were taking back roads coming into northern Texas when workers had spilled paint while striping the highway. Yellow paint was strewn on the underneath of the truck and up into the tongue of the camper. It dried to a rubbery consistency that we had to peel off. Gee whiz..... what next?

I had to ask..... why did I ask? I really did not want to know......

As is our custom when passing through Dallas, one must stop at Neiman's. Now, we are from The South, so quite naturally, we had no compunction leaving our truck and trailer in the Neiman Marcus parking lot whilst we perused the merchandise. 

We left at twilight, pulling onto the freeway and turned on our lights. Happy we're we tooling down the freeway with a straight up and down trailer for a change!  The sun set and all of the sudden this trucker pulls along side of us honking his horn and flashing his lights. What the heck was he doing?!  We pulled off the freeway just to check things. Everything looked ok but when Dave took his foot off the brake there were no lights lit on the trailer. NO RUNNING LIGHTS! ?!##%*!!!! They worked when we left.......

You get used to abnormal being normal a little too easily. But this was bad. 

I remembered how we got home from the west coast, emergency lights. So, *blink, blink*, *blink , blink* all the way to Stephensville, TX. 

The next morning we pow wowed with some other campers trying to figure out the running lights issue. The circuit was grounding and the fuse in the truck was blowing. It blew alright. Off to the nearest Nissan dealer and they showed us the bad fuse and how to replace it plus gave us some extras. 

BUTGROUNDINGWHERE........???

The Tin Can Tourists Texas Fall Rally was a smallish affair but very fun and we met some great people. I was introduced to my first Crock Pot Luck. It's a camping thing.  People cook outside in the heat as to not heat up their trailer interiors. I made a chicken casserole so dear Dave would have something to eat. Even at church Pot Luck, we have to cook something, as Hubs will not eat other people's food. He didn't eat my cooking the whole first year we were married. The first thing I cooked for him he didn't like and it made me mad. A year later, I cooked something for myself, and he wanted to tell me what to substitute, "I'm not making this FOR YOU, I'm making this FOR ME...... if you like it, eat it. If not, don't ! He liked it and has been eating my cooking ever since. 

We brought waaaaaaay too much stuff and our setup looked a lot like a vintage market!

There was also costume theme so , we dressed up as Sonny and Cher.....





There really is a trailer in there, somewhere.......



We won best costumes and best decorated trailer. 
After dinner and awards, we went back to the trailer to cool off. Enjoying the Air Conditioning was interrupted by, .......wait for it..........wait for it.......the trailer being SHOOK VIOLENTLY and we heard what could only be described as a very, VERY LIKE INDUSTRIAL, large Kazoo! YES. YOU HEARD RIGHT!

"What in The heck was that?!" I shrieked about the same second it stopped. We slowly opened the door......👀
Campers from the pavilion were running towards us, hollering, "Are you ok!?" Our camp site was a shambles. The big awning was torn half off the trailer, chairs, tables, and decorative items were strewned everywhere.  Seeing our bewilderment someone explained, "IT was a BIG Dust Devil! It hit the gazebo first throwing plates and dishes all over and we saw it was going toward you and we all hollered OH NO NOT THEM!"

Since we were already picking up, we decided to pack up. We also tried the new fuse and that one got fried, too. I was fighting back tears. 

*SIGH* *sniff* *SOB*

We drove home during the day to avoid needing running lights AGAIN! I'd call Buddy and we would try to fix the problem. A NEW PROBLEM. WHEN WOULD THIS END? It's so small, how could this go on and on? I was hot and tired. The drive home felt like failure, even though we won.....