Saturday, July 13 What could make me bounce out of bed at 6:00 a.m. this morning? We’re heading for Glacier National Park . . . one of our favorites! All we had to do was follow US Route 2 for a little over 300 miles – out of Washington, through the panhandle of Idaho, and into Montana. In the process we crossed a time zone and on the way east, it takes an hour from us. We found our campsite – D151. It was a pull-through. Simple. Except that it wasn’t! We love the pro-pride hitch, but the one limitation is that the truck needs to be in a fairly straight line with the trailer when hitching or unhitching. This pull-through required Tom to pull in and keep curving around until the trailer was off the main road. He maneuvered as much as possible, putting the trailer right up next to the hill on one side . . . and hemmed in by a cluster of three trees on the other. It took the height of three boards to level it out side-to-side. All would have been well, except that the alignment wasn’t quite straight enough. He unhitched the trailer from the truck and pulled forward to pull the stinger out. Disaster struck as the stinger got hung up and pulled the trailer with it – off the level boards and off the tongue blocks. Tom spent time working his mind around what had happened. He couldn’t raise the coupler on the trailer high enough to slide the stinger on the track back in. He had to approach it differently by retracting the tongue all the way up and putting three thick boards under it. But, before he could do that he had to get leveling boards under the hitch so there would be room to put to lift the tongue jack post high enough to get boards under it. Then he had enough height to raise the coupler. But, the hitch and coupler were still at an odd angle to be able to slide that singer straight back in. It took about 6 tries, and he had to push and pull the coupler while I held it in place to change the angle while he backed in. Got it! Except now the angle of the whole rig was changed and as he pulled forward the back window and awning bracket snugged right up to those trees! Tom again spent a few quiet moments checking it out, and then removed the arm of the awning and swung it up and out of the way. This left the window and aluminum siding slightly touching the tree, but Tom managed to slide forward without scratching anything. Some of the window hardware-buttons that stick out from the glass had tree bark on them! The campground is full, so it was this site or nothing. We noticed that if we pulled the trailer in the wrong way through the pull-thru, there would be more room to straighten out. BINGO. So, were here at Glacier! Just a few pictures: the tree we lightly rubbed, the campground and our campsite!
1 Comment
Mike
7/15/2019 05:27:23 pm
Ouch. Stay safe friends. Enjoy the park.
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October 2021
We don’t go camping any more . . . we go ‘streamin’ ! The “SIlvermine and His” is our 2018 25' Airstream Serenity with Salsa interior and front twin beds., and ‘streamin’ is the name we use to describe our adventures. Stream along as we document everything from weekend trips to longer summer excursions and full-blown vacations. You know what they say: if you’re not in an Airstream – you’re just camping!
Tom & Ella Brown |