Day 8, Part 1: Close Calls and Learning Experiences

Thursday 7/1 was our eighth day on the road. We woke up at a golf course outside of Ogden, Utah and went to bed at a golf course in Twin Falls, Idaho.

The Utah golf course was not our favorite place. The parking was in a gravel part of the lot that was covered in goat heads (these sharp thorny things that come off a plant.. painful to step on barefoot, and stick all over your shoes when you walk on them). There was no restaurant or bar. It was just very underwhelming really, as we had expected some views. BUT, it was free as part of our Harvest Host membership, so we appreciated that of course! As Mike mentioned in a previous post, we are tracking our per night average cost and trying to keep it as low as possible. I’m planning to do a post about the memberships we have, I just need to find the time.

Anyways, we were getting everything ready for the day’s drive, and went to bring in our slide out, but had trouble with it. A slide out is something you only put out when you are parked for the day/night and level, and have to (of course) bring in before you drive. It gives added square footage to an RV. Some RVs have multiple slide outs, we just have the one for our bed. Most slide outs you see are on the sides, but ours is just straight out the back to give us a little bedroom area.

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Well, it wasn’t moving. At all. It didn’t even make a sound like it was trying to move. Ugh, not another issue! We started looking for reasons it wouldn’t move. I was googling, Mike was looking though the manual. We did our job of staying calm and trying to not freak out. But I was thinking about how we cannot drive anywhere with it out, so what would we do? I looked up manually retracting a slide and you need some tools that we do not have with us (we will be learning about this and getting said tools in Oregon for sure, so we are more prepared, just in case!).

This only lasted about five minutes when Mike suddenly said, “maybe the engine has to be off.” We had already started the motorhome to start cooling it off inside a bit, since we had to open the front shades to prepare to drive off. That’s the first time we’d started it before being fully ready to leave, so we hadn’t ever run into this.

Sure enough, the slide out worked fine once we turned the motorhome off. I guess there is concern about it being opened while you drive, so it just doesn’t get any power at all while the engine is on. Makes sense.

Another issue scare that wasn’t really anything. THANKFULLY.

Then we went on with our drive. We stopped for gas about halfway there. The station was busy and there were lines at every pump. After having to drive the motorhome around the station twice, we ended up in line behind a truck pulling a trailer. In the pump next to the one we were waiting for, another truck with a small U-Haul pulls up facing the opposite way as us. And he pulls way up making the space we have to turn into the pump way smaller than it was going to be. Okay, I’m probably not painting a super clear picture, but basically the turn into the pump lane we were waiting for was iffy.

AND when it was finally time to go forward we realized the turn was taken too wide, an overcorrection for the jerk who pulled up too far. From inside the RV it looked like we were going to hit the cement wall protecting the pump. So, we realized the moment had come where we were stuck and had to unhook the car since we could not back up (can’t back up while flat-towing a car). We jumped out, tried to unhook the car. Had trouble with one of the pins due to the sharp angle the car was at behind the RV. We weren’t sure what to do, tried turning the wheel of the car like we’ve read should work, but to no avail.

So, we’re in the middle of a crowded gas station, can’t unhook the car, and are stuck. We take our deep breath (we’re learning to stop and take a second) and decide to check the front of the RV again and see if there’s any chance we can make the turn after all. When we had gotten out of the RV to unhook the car, we went straight back there to unhook as quickly as possible. We just wanted to get it done and get out of this position.

When we looked from outside, we were further than we thought from the cement wall, but it was still not looking good. Mike got back in to start pulling forward while I watched to tell him when to stop. He cranked it right as far as he could and inched forward. Now, here is where you know we aren’t used to having a blog. We should have videoed this! It didn’t even cross our minds though. Once the RV was about three inches from hitting, I was sure it wouldn’t make it and made Mike get back out and look. He thought it looked good, so I guess he’s got a better eye for this. He got back in and inched forward and BARELY got past the wall!

Yet another near-miss for us! And an embarrassing several minutes at the gas station. I never looked up at anyone around us… I didn’t want to see who was watching us or how dumb we looked.

The rest of the drive was uneventful, and the place we landed for the night was AMAZING!