Wednesday August 23rd 2023

My long stay at Pecan Park RV Resort on the north side of Jacksonville ended this morning. It was a busy morning getting ready to travel. I took my time hooking up my new car for towing. I checked all the connections twice and followed the towing prep instructions in the owner manual line by line. Checking the lights was a bit of a challenge as a solo traveler. Once I get some confidence in the connection I’ll revert back to my usual process of just using the four way flashers as a continuity tests. Installing the auxiliary towed vehicle brake was a also a little different than my previous care.

I pulled out of my site at 11:30 about a half an hour after the documented checkout time. On the way out of my site the car brakes locked up for a few seconds. I stopped the motorhome in the site across the road and checked everything out. Most likely some of the cars fancy safety features though the car was going to hit the motorhome and applied the brakes. I continued on carefully. The brakes may have tried to lock up again before I was out of the park, but not to the point that I needed to stop. It took a few miles before I became comfortable that things seemed to be towing successfully. I wanted to stop at the rest area on Interstate 10 to check everything out again, but it was closed for paving. I continued on toward my destination. At the exit for the campground I heard unexpected noises and stopped on the side of the road to check things out once again. Once again I could find nothing wrong and continued on to the campground.

Looking back at the experience I think the early brake lockup can be addressed with an adjustment to some settings. The second issue I don’t know what to think. Looking back at it I think it was unrelated to the towing issue. It may have been a noise from inside the RV that took me by surprise and caused a minor panic. I’ll look for other issues tomorrow and test things out again on Friday.

I am at the Jennings KOA Holiday in Jennings Florida on the side of Interstate 75 just south of the GA state line. I’ll be here for two nights before moving on again on Friday. This is a campground I’ve been at before and enjoyed. It is a little hotter here without the mitigating influence of the Atlantic Ocean. It was in the nineties and very humid when I arrived at 1:30PM.