Why We Often Choose To Blacktop Boondock

I’ll get back to the shade repair, but today we hit the road, leaving Ohio enroute to South Carolina. Because we were parked at Marti’s sister’s house for a week with no hook ups other than a 20 amp electric cord, our holding tanks were pretty full and our fresh water tank was just about as dry as Quartzsite, Arizona.

Researching possible dump sites along our route resulted in a big goose egg:  “0”.

That left only other solution, a campground for the night.  Campgrounds in West Virginia where we were traveling through resulted in slim, really slim pickings.

Marti found one on line and reviews of it indicated it was just okay for an overnight.  We decided to go there, the Journey needed to dump bad!

Marti called to see if they had a site to fit us for the night and the lady that answered the phone said they did and then gave us directions to get there.

The campground was waaay out in the sticks and the road to get there was about a lane and a half wide.  It made passing the rare car an interesting evolution.  We encountered a black Porsche speeding around a blind curve.  He screeched to a stop as he saw us.  We slowly inched by, clearing him by mere millimeters.  After I passed by I looked at him in my rear view mirror, he didn’t move as long as I could see him, maybe he was waiting for his heart to start beating again.

The road twisted, turned and went up and down for over six long miles.  I was expecting to see lions and tigers and bears any second.

Finally we came to the entrance of the campground, a really tight, very sharp right hand turn up a hill.  I pulled the Journey as far to the left as I could and then swung right into the driveway.

The Journey shifted into first gear and began to climb the hill and then it stopped going forward.  I had a second’s panic that the transmission had just failed, until I realized we were…

STUCK!

The right side wheels were spinning on wet grass and starting to dig in.

Now we had a real problem.  I couldn’t back down with the toad attached and because it was behind the Journey and not straight, it was going to make disconnecting difficult. 

It was a struggle, but I got it loose, with Marti behind the wheel and jockeying the transmission back and forth to loosen the pressure on the tow bar.  She backed the car out of the way. 

I didn’t want to try and go forward and dig in deeper.  I could just imagine how long it would take to get my emergency road service to respond and tow me out.  That left the only option, to back up.

I told Marti to stay clear as I backed out because I was going to come out hot.  I put the Journey in reverse and backed up hard.

As I got out in the road, I heard a scraping noise, the tow hitch was dragging on the pavement.  Great.  I was able to straighten the Journey out to make another stab at the driveway, this time hoping to be over far enough to stay on the gravel of the drive.  The tow hitch dragged a second time.

 

I had to back one more time to get far enough over to the left to get fully on the drive.  Of course, the hitch dragged again.

Once I finally got up on the gravel drive, I stopped and checked the hitch for damage.  The hitch had some scraped paint but the link for my safety cable was bent and broken.

Fortunately I carry a collection of spare links, but no hooks, but at least I can make a temporary repair using a couple of links until I can get some hook replacements.

While I was taken the damaged links off, Marti went in to the office to register.  $20 for 50 amp FHU.  Okay, not bad.  The lady in the office had seen the trouble we had coming in to the campground and said she didn’t understand why the lady we had spoken to previously on the phone had told us to come in from the direction we did.  She always gives people directions to come in from the other way because of the tight turn.  Sheesh!

The site was all grass which made me nervous, I didn’t want to sink into the wet ground.  I got out and inspected it and found it was okay but would need to put down my jack pads so my levelers didn’t sink into the ground.  Plus we had to stay as far forward as possible because the site was off level.  It canted down to the right.

After getting situated, I dumped the tanks.  I swear I heard the Journey breath a sigh of relief.  The 50 amp electric plug was interesting.  No cover for the plug and no circuit breaker to turn it on.  Another reason I’m glad to have a surge guard protector.

Tomorrow, when we leave, I’m going to remove the hitch first and reinstall it at a safe place.  And we are going out the other direction!

Lastly, for my buddy, Rick, he was disappointed that I didn’t have any pictures of me accidently stepping on my laptop and cracking the screen.  So the best I can do is show him what my screen looks like.  I can’t wait to get it fixed, hope it isn’t too costly.  :cO

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.