Monday July 9th 2018

It was a bright and sunny day, but I seemed to have a metaphorical cloud over me most of the day. A lot of little annoying things got in the way of my travels today.

View to the east from my campsite in Crossville, TN.

The first pain this morning was dumping the holding tank. The sewer hookup was at the high end of the site and we all know that excrement doesn’t flow up hill. It took extra time to slope the hose and coax the fluids along. I didn’t make a mess, but there is always that fear in the back of your mind.

The next issue was bringing in the main living room slide out room. When I pushed the button nothing happened. This is a hydraulic slide so I tried to adjust the leveling jacks which are on the same hydraulic pump also with no success. By this time my brain is firing a mile a minute trying to figure out what all my options are along with all of the worst case scenarios. Luckily, my first option worked. I turned the motorhome off and restarted it after a few minutes. The hydraulic pumps will only work with the key turned to the on position. This time it worked. The slide came in and the leveling jacks came up into the travel position. Moving the RV today was back on the table.

I still wasn’t ready to leave. Hooking the car up to be towed turned into the third challenge of the morning. I was on enough of a hill that hooking up the car and getting the tow bars locked into place is tricky. I’ve been able to complete the task in the past using blocks in front of the car wheels to prevent it from rolling before the tow bars are locked into place. It didn’t work this morning. One side locked in place, but the other one collapsed into its storage position. Any turns before I got the problem fixed would bend the bar. I got the bars disconnected with a lot of brute force including a hammer and punch to drive the locking pin out. Then I moved the motor home to a slightly more level area on the exit road from the campground. After I walked back into the park and brought the car to the motor home, I successfully got it connected.

It was after eleven in the morning by the time I departed from the gas station near the on ramp to the Interstate. I was underway about an hour after my planned departure time, but my adventure wasn’t over yet. The loop road around the south of Nashville was the wrong decision. I wanted to avoid the downtown Nashville traffic and the usually bad city Interstate highway road surfaces. The extra twenty miles was full of reverse frost heaves. Every mile or so there were dips in the road surface about twenty to fifty feet long that set the RV bouncing. Even though I slowed down to under 60mph they still surprised me. I think I was nearly airborne on a couple of the dips.

Site 31 at the Crossville/I-40 KOA.

I arrived at my stop for the next two nights in Crossville TN at 3PM. I have a very nice cement pad site with plenty of grass. Hopefully, my travel luck has returned. The leveling jacks and both slide rooms went out without any problems.

A couple of my neighbors.