Saturday, April 11, 2009

Getting home is not half the fun

Back in the day when my father was a general aviation pilot he mainly flew out of San Carlos Airport in San Carlos, California. The airport had a north-south runway with an almost constant east-west cross wind.

Most of the landings he/we made at that airport involved "crabbing" into the wind, which is basically flying sideways into the wind until just before landing when you straighten out and put the plane down.

My Dad used to say he might have trouble completing a landing if he didn't have a cross wind. Now I get his point.

On all three days I pulled our new trailer we were on a north south road (I-75) with a brisk to fierce cross wind (25-35 mph). I'm not going to know how to pull the trailer if we're not bucking a stiff cross wind. It did make for some anxious moments, but I guess it is good experience.

In Ohio, I stopped for gas and found myself in a gas station way too small for a rig as large as mine. There were more anxious moments as I blocked the driveway waiting for the guy in front of me to finish gassing up. Didn't make many friends there.

After pulling out of the station I used a large lot to turn around in and later noticed a sign that said: "No RV or truck turnaround." Sorry.

We've learned that truck stops are the best place to gas up when we have the trailer attached.

Because the refrigerator runs on propane while we are pulling it, before we pull up to the pumps we have to go back into the trailer and turn off the refrigerator so there isn't an open flame next to the gas pump.

The pulling, because of the wind, was somewhat more difficult than I anticipated, but the comfort and convenience of pulling our own bedroom was well worth the effort.

Once home, we had to deal with heavy traffic on our street as I backed the trailer into the driveway. After a couple false starts (due to traffic) I was able to safely pull the trailer into its new spot next to the garage.

I'll post some statistics later on the miles and locations covered on this trip. Happy Easter everyone!

Here are the totals:

Miles on the trailer: 918
Miles on the Tahoe: 1,298
Campsites visited: 2 (Oh KY Campground in Berea and Elkhorn Campground in Frankfort, KY)
Memories: Priceless

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