Keeping with our meandering way we decided to spend one more night on the road. We just didn’t know where. We left DSH and headed to the high desert. After a while we decided to stay at Tehachapi. We have always liked this little town. I was toying with the idea of staying in campground there by one of their airports. It was only $25 a night for water and electricity. Then I decided to get cheaper.
We knew there was a Love’s truck stop there and the plan was to stay there. Its’ cost is $0 per night. We got there right around dark and decided to park backed up to a motorhome that was there already. The spot was between a SeaTrain type storage container and another semi. We also wanted to get a bite in town so I was going to disconnect the trailer and just take the truck. I had to disconnnect anyway because there was a small slope to the spot (downhill from the tongue to the bumper of the trailer). If I park in a spot with the slope the other way then I normally won’t disconnect as I can raise the tongue of the trailer with just the jack. This is where my fun began.
I put my wood and jack stand under the tongue and jack it up to disconnect the equalizer bars, etc. I then jack it back up to get it off the ball. As I do this I see the trailer gradually moving away from the ball. It was rolling down the slope! It rolled enough that I could not put it back on the ball. Time to panic! I could just visualize the trailer continuing to roll off the jack stand and start gouging into the parking lot and hit the motorhome. I put my hand on the jack and pulled back to arrest the roll. That seemed to be working.
During all this Roxie was in the truck talking to her sister. I started banging on the tail gate with my free hand and got her attention. It took a few more vehement hand signals to convey to her that I wanted her to get in the seat of the truck and back it up about 1-2 inches. She was able to do so and I got the tongue back on the ball. The NEXT thing I did was both RotoChock the wheels AND wheel chock them. Whew. Now I could disconnect again, with no movement.
We headed into town and went to Red House BBQ on the suggestions of Yelp. Great suggestion. Quirky little place, great brisket and a very friendly owner. Lots of food for the money. Next stop was a Kmart. I wanted to get some more propane bottles for our Heater Buddy as we figured it would get cold that night. Tehachapi has a very large, nice Kmart. Roxie saw a motorhome staying in the parking lot and asked management if RV’s could stay overnight. They said sure. After a bit of discussion we decided to move the home base to Kmart for overnight.
Went back to Love’s. I was tempted to put the trailer just on the ball with no equalization since I only had to tow about 3 miles. Then I decided to fully hook it up as we would not be disconnecting at Kmart. When I do one of these overnight only free camps, I do a few things. First level the trailer side to side, second chock the wheels (duh!), third level from front to back, fourth put on the parking brake on the truck, fifth disconnect the umbilical. Leaving is the reverse.
We settled in for the evening. I put up the TV antenna and we watched the 5 channels we could get. This trailer has an inverter built in so we can do most AC things (TV, chargers, etc) with the batteries. We also ran the big heater a bit to get the real chill down. After we were done in the AM we had consumed 18% of our battery. I can live with that.
Above is our overnight stop in Tehachapi.
Roxie realized after a somewhat restless night that the Kmart got way too quiet for her. She has determined that she now feels a bit safer at a truck stop overnight. Good news to hear.
Final day and on the way home. We will get to see how the truck does downhill now. And it did very well. The tow/haul was a great help as was the extra braking. This truck has an integrated trailer brake controller that senses how hard you are pressing the brake pedal and gives a corresponding amount of voltage to the trailer brakes. Our previous controllers were driven by inertia. However, I remember my father in the 60’s tying into the cars hydraulic brakes to attach a brake controller. It must have used the same concept that we are back to now.
We made it to Bakersfield and our trailer was as dirty as we started. All along we were looking for a self service car wash with a bay big enough for the Airstream. This despite the issue I had in Hollister. We tried in AZ but we would have have cleared the rotating arm at the top. We found one in Beaumont, CA once but could not catch a break this time. I found a few truck washes off of CA58 on the way into Bako. We stopped at one and asked him the price. $30 for the trailer, $45 for both.
Deal. I checked to see how soft the brushes were and I was content with them. We waited about 45 minutes for them to do it. They did a decent job, missed a few spots, didn’t seem like they were going to do the roof until I asked them about it. All in all much better than us doing it! Might as well have it clean going home!
We stopped at the Love’s truck stop in Tulare (yes the third one) but this time I wanted to weigh the rig like I did before. But this time the new truck was part of it. I will report the weights in a future post with an analysis and comparison. We went to my favorite dump station before heading home.
I keep a spreadsheet for how many miles we have travelled with the trailer and only the trailer mileage. This trip was 1165 miles bringing our grand total since we took delivery of about 5350 miles. I also tracked the fuel via an iPhone app in addition to letting the truck keep track. Here are the results:
Overall I am pleased with the MPG. About the same as the other truck with the other trailer. But this trailer is bigger and this truck has more power.
Nice to be back home in a way but it is also nice to get out. Soon, Roger, soon….
