We’ve been having an adventure. You may remember we were planning to go on vacation to Arizona with the trailer. Well, we put our things away in the trailer, but when Charlie checked the lights, they weren’t working. Not an auspicious beginning!
As you probably know, when you pull a trailer, the lights on your tow vehicle can’t be seen by other drivers, because the trailer is in the way. That's why they put lights on trailers. If they aren’t working, though, you can get a ticket. He had to fix them. By the time we left, it was already afternoon, so when we stopped for gas in Burns, OR, it was already time to start looking for a place to spend the night.
The place where we had planned to stop had something called "full hookups." That meant you can connect to power, water and sewer. When we drove in, though, none of the empty spots were cleared of snow, and we were concerned about trying to pull through snow that deep. I found another place online, and Siri took us there. There were several cleared spaces and an attendant, who suggested we take the spot next to the dog park. We backed in and hooked up. The power worked right away, but no water came out of the trailer faucets. Charlie said that there must be some ice in the pipes. They decided just to bring in some water from the campground faucet to use for washing and only hook up to the power. We would just be there overnight. I used my phone to register online, but their system put us in a different spot. The attendant said he would notify the owners of the change.
The next day, we unplugged the power, and we rode off. All went well until early afternoon. Suddenly, we heard a loud noise. It didn’t stop as we rode on. It was making our ears hurt. We had to continue driving, because there was no place to pull off. Finally, we came to a pull-out and called AAA.
We were in the middle of nowhere, roughly halfway between Burns and Winnemucca. The nearest town was 15 miles ahead, but no one within miles and miles had the capability to take both our truck AND our trailer. After several phone calls back and forth with AAA and different repair places, they finally found us someone back in Burns who could, and was willing to, pick us up and take us to Winnemucca where there was a repair place that could look at our truck and an RV campground where we could stay. The tow-truck driver suggested we call right away to make a reservation for the trailer, because the office was due to close soon, and then call the recommended auto shop, to let them know we were bringing in a disabled vehicle.
It was well after dark when he got there, because it was a long drive from Burns. We got into the cab, while he loaded the truck onto the bed of his truck and attached our trailer to the back of his vehicle. (I learned that the truck would be “hauled” and the trailer “towed.” I didn’t know the difference in these terms before.) Here's the view out the back window of his cab. The red lights were flashing:
He would drop the trailer off at the RV campground in space 64, which we had been assigned when we made the reservation, and we could expect a map with the codes in a drawer in front of the office. The campground office was closed by the time we were picked up. When we got there, however, someone else was in that spot and there was no paperwork in the drawer. Our helper put the trailer in the next spot, which was empty, and we would do without the codes the first night. (We found out the next day, that the people in our assigned spot had signed up online right before the office closed. They had been assigned space 62. Apparently they assumed the paperwork was for them and someone in the office forgot to make up another map with codes and space indicated for them.) We still had to eat, so it was very late when we got to sleep.
After leaving our trailer at the campground, we took the truck to the repair shop and left it. That was Thursday. Friday morning we called the repair shop. They would not be able to look at it until this week, though, so we don’t know yet what the damage will be or how long we will have to stay here, but the Arizona plans are out.
When we went outside the next day, this is what the place looked like.
They have a heated swimming pool that opens May 15th, but I'm sure we won't be here still, and we didn't bring our swimsuits.
It’s very cold and windy in Winnemucca. It has been a struggle to keep the trailer warm, but fortunately, we brought a little electric space heater, which runs pretty much all the time. We have a furnace, but we use it sparingly, because we don’t want to run out of propane in the middle of the night. We're making use of the warm fake fur blankies we got for the puppy.
We got the water running, but it freezes up occasionally. We keep the cabinet doors open, and Charlie switches out the hose from the water connection to the trailer periodically, so any water inside can thaw. We've been here less than four days and already we've had strong gusts of wind, as well as rain, snow, sleet and this stuff, which looks like someone killed a Beanie Baby.
We are stuck here with no way to drive to the store. The campground has a little grocery section in the office, but it’s pretty much just canned and packaged stuff. The nearest grocery story is a mile away, not a bad walk...in warmer weather. There is a store in town that delivers, though, if we decide there is something we absolutely have to have. We should have enough food to get us through at least another week.
I had planned for this week’s story to be about Billy and Emil’s adventures, traveling with “The Writer” and her husband and camping in Arizona with the trailer. All that went out the window, of course, but the story, as told by Emil in a letter to his friend Holly, is going to be way more interesting.
When things go awry in life I have been known for years to comment, “This will look good in my autobiography.” No no one wants to read a story about how someone planned a trip, everything went as planned and they did fun things like hike, swim and watch movies. They like to read about all the things that went wrong. A happy ending is always nice, though. We’ll see!
I did manage to get some knitting done during the short time we were actually driving and then holed up in the trailer. I’m through the yoke of the Talvinen sweater now, done with the divide for the sleeves and am ready to work my way down the body. Here's the front:
The back:
I tried it on, and I think it will fit nicely as a cardigan. (The vertical stripes down the front are the steek, so about an inch of that will be gone in overlapping button and buttonhole bands.)
We also have had excellent internet, both here and the place in Burns, allowing us to watch the news and movies, and I’m ready to download another novel or two to my phone, having finished the one I was listening to. We also were able to Zoom on Sunday with two of our kids and our daughter-in-law.
One other happy event. The last time I checked the mail before we left, my bag for the Rose City Yarn Crawl had arrived, so I transferred my current projects to the new bag.
Our neighbor is picking up our mail, as the PO never seemed to register my hold mail request. The book purchased during the yarn crawl and the yarn to make one of the sweaters in it both arrived the day we left, and our neighbor has them.
"The best laid schemes of mice and men gang oft agley" ––Burns
What's in The Doll's Storybook: Pippa and Pauly wonder about the strange pink creature sitting on the bed in “Pink Floyd.”
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