DEPARTURE

The day came, and went. We weren’t ready. So, we set another day. It came and went too. Finally, we set that hard date of March 20^th. Most everything was complete. The trailer we had acquired was filled to the roof and ready to hitch to Carrie’s Dodge Dakota. We had only a few items to pack into The Phoenix and we could be on our way. Those “few” items were apparently distant relatives of the five loaves and fish and quickly displaced any possibility of walking or sleeping inside the RV.  Packing to become Homesteaders is much different from packing for a trip it seems. We soon had items that we hadn’t used in years but just might come in handy while fending for ourselves. 

The projected departure of morning quickly became late afternoon, then early evening.  Yet, with sunlight still in the sky, we were ready to hitch the trailer to the pickup and the Jeep to the Phoenix (the RV). My first goal was the trailer. With a full load the tires were looking a little pudgy around the bottom. A quick check told me they were a bit low on air.  With the expert directions of Carrie, I skillfully backed the truck up and the hitch dropped on the ball with little difficulty. The Dakota had a different opinion. As we cranked down the trailer jack, the pickup began to creak, groan, and find it’s way toward the concrete. Yet, the foot of the jack lifted off the ground before the hitch touched… a good sign.

Feeling confident that we were on our way, I jumped behind the wheel of the Dodge and slowly pulled out of the driveway… almost. “Stop!”, Carrie yelled. I stopped. I got out. I smacked my forehead.  The low ride of the hitch had conspired with the slightly steep angle of our driveway leading the trailer jack to bottom out. The term bottom out is used here to mean a situation in which the jack completely buries itself in a small portion of dirt which had to be driven over to get completely out of the driveway. Indeed, it wedged itself between two portions of concrete. It was not moving.

Determining that we didn’t really want a new lawn ornament, Carrie reminded me of the new 6 ton bottle jacks in the RV. This did the trick, lifting the fully extended trailer jack out of it’s two foot deep grave. A bit of wrangling and a different, higher, ball hitch and we succeeded on our perilous journey from the driveway to the street. After a quick trip to top off the air in the tires, I parked our rig at the curb and discovered that the Dodge had become a bit snooty. It’s rear, and the hitch, were nearly touching the black top while it’s nose was positioned firmly into the air. Yes, the pickup was ready for lift-off.

 Now if you’ve never driven a vehicle pulling a trailer before, you may be unaware of the phrase “the tail wagging the dog”. It’s like it sounds really. Imagine driving down the Interstate Highway only to have an overloaded trailer swing to one side thus causing the pickup to swing the other direction, and then back the other way when the driver tries to compensate. This is a little circus act that often ends up performing in a ditch near you!

Determining that we didn’t want the pickup and trailer to become a ditch ornament, we proceeded with unpacking the trailer and sacrificing items we thought we could live without. This exercise continued until the pickup was at least closer to the level condition it was before the addition of the trailer.  By this time it was very late into the night.

Around 1:30am on March 21st, we finally hit the road.

The first stage seemed fine, though we figured out The Phoenix was getting about 3 miles per gallon. Yeah. I was driving the RV with Cody riding along. Carrie followed in the pickup. Then it happened. Somewhere shortly before Chamberlain, Carrie called… “pull over, there are sparks coming from the Jeep!” Not needing to be told twice I quickly found the shoulder of I-90 and pulled over. The smoke had stopped rolling off the front passenger side tire by the time I had walked back. The tire itself was pretty torn up and listing more than a bit to starboard. A quick check found that we didn’t have the key positioned quite right in the ignition to keep the steering unlocked. Quite the contrary, it locked up so well I almost couldn’t get it to move. As a result, the tires were tracking wrong and tore up a tire. We would find out later that it wrecked the brakes and the axle as well.

Let me just stop for a moment and say that we are big fans of AAA! It was around 3:30 in the morning when that slightly sleepy tow truck driver came to rescue us. A pretty friendly guy for that time of the morning. He easily got us to a truck stop at the Chamberlain exit where we could also park the RV for the night. We then found refuge in a very nice AmericInn across the street that had very soft beds and a pretty fare continental breakfast. After a bit of sleep and food, we found a U-Haul and rented a car dolly to tow the Jeep to the Black Hills.

The motorhome was getting a little better mileage with the Jeep on the dolly, but it was still only around 5.5mpg. Not great. Then we got to hills. Near Wasta, SD is a pretty steep and long hill coming out of the Cheyenne River valley. The poor RV made it, but we were down to 25mph by the top of the hill. We made it into Rapid City without too much more difficulty, fueled up again, and started toward Hill City and the acreage of Carries parents.

We barely made it out of Rapid City. A very long hill lies on the south edge of town. The Phoenix had a lot of will, but the hill had more won’t. Most of the way up, we lost power. I pulled over. It started again, traveled a short distance and stalled again. We repeated this little cycle until making it over the hill and up another small hill to the parking lot of one of our favorite rock shops. 

Once again I mention that we are fans of AAA. While Carries parents came to drive us to their place, AAA came to bring both of our vehicles in for evaluation and repairs.

By the following day we determined that if the RV couldn’t make the hills here, it certainly wasn’t going to pull the Jeep through two large mountain ranges. It made the same trip back in 2004, with many other issue, but we had to unhitch the Jeep and have Carrie drive it through the worst climbs. We can't do that this time, so we realize the RV will not make the trip as is. We will be seeking a way to transport our RV to Whidbey by other means. It will still make a wonderful cabin, and will likely drive around on flat land just fine. We just need to get it there.

With that, we are safe and sound in the Hill City area and ready to have a little fun and relaxation.

The journey continues.