Monthly Archives: January 2015

A supremely useful gadget

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I will start trying to blog about items that I have purchased that I really like, and also ones that I don’t.  This one is something that is well worth the investment.

When you have a trailer you need to connect it to your tow vehicle.  This is done with the hitch.  On our previous truck we had a Reese setup, I believe.  The hitch head was not too heavy.  However with our new trailer we have an Equalizer.  This hitch head seems much heavier, which is a good thing.  There also appears to be less places to grab it.  Here is it in our truck:

2015-01-11 15.16.19

 

 

The removal procedure is to unbolt the lock pin and remove the hitch.  The shank, the bar that inserts into the truck, is an easy place to grab but can be rusty.  There is no real good other, relatively clean, area on the hitch.  Therefore I have reverted to this:

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Ah, yes, a Costco microfiber towel.

This works OK but I look like an older man than I am carrying this hitch being bent over so the grease doesn’t touch anywhere.  What is the solution?  This:

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The HitchGrip!  If you go to their site, via the link to the left, they show an Airstream and an Equalizer hitch head!  That is purely coincidence.  The claw portion fits over your ball and grabs it.  You lift up and slide the hitch out.  It is very balanced.  You may also notice that mine is not really clean.  That is because I use it!

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Much nicer.  Still heavy but easier to maneuver.

I know they sell these at Toscanos RV in Los Banos.  I also see them at Camping World.  Run right out and get one now!!

Numbers

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I love numbers, as Roxie can attest.  My current obsession, she says I have many OCD tendencies, are license plates with 3 consecutive duplicate digits (like 333).  I can thank my dad for that.  Ask me about it if you want to know.

This last trip, to the Rose Parade, triggered a few number oriented items for us.

The first one is that we hit 10000 miles with the trailer.  I log every trip we take and I log where the trailer was towed.  I keep a spreadsheet and do the mapping on Google Maps.  Here is an example from Quartzsite to Van Nuys we did in August:

Map

This is also how I get my mileage for the spreadsheet.

So that is 10K miles in 2 years.  Here is a breakdown from the spreadsheet:

2015-01-14_1213

Now the mileages that I keep are all very close estimates.  I don’t use the odometer (so who is OCD now?) as I cannot remember to reset it when I would need to.

More numbers.

When we got our first Airstream from my parents they were members of WBCCI.  If you are a member you get assigned a number to put on your trailer so other WBCCI’rs can see it and look you up in the directory.  Their number was 27380 and we were able to transfer it to us when we joined WBCCI, the first time.  It was also easier than trying to take the numbers off!

There is another set of numbers that some AirForums users use.  There was a minor upswelling in the community to have their own numbers.  It was proposed to use BLUE numbers and your number would be your member number in AirForums.

I did an earlier blog post about the blue numbers here.  We dropped out of WBCCI about 5 years ago but never took the old numbers off of the old trailer.

Prior to the Rose Parade rally I figured we could join WBCCI again and we did, joining the 4 Corners Unit.  We could have got the old number again if I tried but why?  The WBCCI policy used to be to issue sequential numbers and not reuse any.  This has changed as they are now reissuing numbers that are higher than 1000.  We got 1646.  However, I mounted them in a different location:

Numbers1 Numbers2

This way if we ever drop out again we can remove them easily.

And, by the way, I saw a license plate the other day with 5(!) consecutive duplicate digits!!   But that is another story…