The snowy/icy road between me and freedom.
Yesterday was a time of high drama, stress, and ignorance manifest. But lessons were learned. And I lived. So that’s bonus.
The first hiccup was the very act of breaking camp at 1 p.m.
In my lifestyle, with the complex camps I set up for 3-week stays at each campground, I typically begin to pack up the night before moving day, unclipping, taking down, and stowing every item I don’t absolutely need for the evening and the next morning. Then, on moving day, I break camp in earnest at 9 a.m., after breakfast and my walk, with the goal to be rolling by 10 a.m. or 10:30 at the latest.
Yesterday’s 1 p.m. start for packing-up time came after I visited the ranger station at my high mountain camp to discuss the forecasted snowstorm, which was expected that night. While The Weather Channel said 3 to 5 inches of snow were expected, the ranger showed me a bulletin indicating that up to 18 inches of snow could fall at our elevation of 7,000 feet. I had been prepared to stay a few days beyond my reservation deadline to allow 3 to 5 inches snow to melt so I could pull The Tiny out of its snow-locked site. But with up to 18 inches on the way, we’re talking spring thaw before my rolling home would be liberated. I had to get out of there!
Breaking camp took 2 full hours. The storm was forecast for 8 p.m., but the ranger said it could start at 6 p.m. I asked the ranger if he thought I could pull The Tiny out along the icy exit with my rear-wheel-drive vehicle (read: not 4-wheel drive), and he said I could try and if got stuck I could always call roadside assistance. So while I was pleased as I broke camp that the afternoon “heat” of 42 degrees was melting some of the ice between me and freedom, I couldn’t delay trying to pull my trailer out because if I got stuck and had to call roadside assistance, how long would it take for them to respond? Hours? I might well get The Tiny stuck in the storm without an electrical hookup to keep me and the dog warm through the night. Chill winds came up and I saw the tops of the pines swaying. Maybe the storm would come even earlier. Weather predictions, I’ve discovered, are not an exact science, and if you get caught in some unpredicted predicament, there is no money back guarantee.
On my trip to the restroom to dump my Porta Potti, I brought along a kettle of boiling water and poured it over some of the icy patches that I thought would give me trouble on the attempted drive out. Seeing the ice steam up and turn to slush warmed my heart.
When I was packed up, I put the dog in the car, raised the stabilizer jacks, removed the BAL leveler, raised the tongue, backed the car up (precisely the first time, using my rear camera), and lowered the hitch onto the ball. I attached the chains, crossed underneath, attached the emergency brake cable, plugged in the 7-pin power plug, checked the lights, and took a deep breath. Now was the moment of truth. Could I pull this trailer out?
I had learned a bit about driving my vehicle on snow and ice over the past few weeks. The idea is to have momentum going over icy patches but not apply brakes or give it gas. That was my strategy, anyway. I pulled down the hill and let gravity take over. We glided over the slushy snow on the first area of concern, then picked up speed on the wet dirt before the uphill icy patch. Approaching it with as much speed as I dared, The Tiny bouncing along behind, I let my foot off the gas and let the mighty Dodge Durango do its thing. It did. I felt a little teeny sliding at the top of the icy patch, but then we landed on wet asphalt and I was at liberty to gas it and let the rear wheels purchase and launch us up and over the bridge to the main road. Woo hoo! I wondered how many other things I’ve not tried in my lifetime because I was afraid, unjustifiably, that I would fail? Many.
I parked the rig by the restroom and took the girl for one last walk in the campground. I thanked the park and our site for having us. We started to climb our favorite trail, but I kept the girl on her leash. That morning I’d seen a healthy young coyote just feet from our camp, and later we heard a wild coyote cacophony coming from this very hill. It’s coyote mating season, and I didn’t want my girl to get involved.
Back in the car, I couldn’t find the USB charger cable for my phone. I knew I’d put in my computer bag. Where was it? My phone was almost dead. I had several charging options that involved the accessory outlets on the vehicle, but none of them worked. WTF? The afternoon was deepening and I had to get out of there. I thought I might find a truck stop along my 3-hour drive to my sister’s house (close to my next camp) and buy a new charger.
Driving The Tiny down the twisty turny road to the lowlands was not a problem. I’ve learned to drive as slow as I need without caring one whit about what those behind me think. If there is a passing lane or a decent turn out, I’ll move over. But pulling over onto uneven gravel to pacify the tailgater behind me is just not my game anymore.
The drive was fairly uneventful as I moved west and north along several California freeways. Giant electronic billboards warned of heavy snowfall in local mountains. Gratitude for my escape poured out of me. But when darkness came on. I noticed that my headlights were not giving me much light. I normally don’t drive at night if I can avoid it. But the approaching storm changed that policy. It was night, I was driving, and I could barely see the center line. Is my night vision that bad? I tried my high beams, and found they would only work if I manually pulled the lever toward me, and then they would go out every 30 seconds, and I had to release and pull it again. I thought: OMG, I only have about 30,000 miles on my car and already the headlights are going out. I thought through getting to my next camp and calling my nephew, who is a mechanic, to fix it. I thought about my checking account, and how I would drop the car off at his shop, and how I would manage without a car for a few days. I wondered: if the headlights have gone out, will the high beams go out as well?
It was extremely dark on the 2-lane road the GPS directed me on. With 90 minutes of driving before I arrived at my sister’s house, my body was tense. I realized I had followed the GPS lady’s suggestion go over a high-mountain pass near a ski resort rather than sticking to the lowland freeways that would have worked just as well. Darn! I need to do better at checking out my route before I leave and not just trusting this lady. She doesn’t know everything. If I got stuck on this dark road at this high elevation and with the storm coming, what would I do?
As I was driving, thinking about my almost dead cell phone, I thought back to where I had put the charger cable. I know I put it in my computer bag. I finally realized it might have fallen into the pages of my journal, which was in the same bag. I reached over. It had! I now had a cell phone in case doomsday arrived and I needed to let someone know.
The next 90 minutes were a series of pulling the high beam lever and releasing it every 30 seconds, pissing off people coming toward me with my high beams in their eyes, and my determination to make it to my destination. Every time I started to think: What if don’t make it?, I could hear the voice of a friend saying: You will make it.
And I did. When I arrived to my sister’s house, the first thing I did was to look at the headlight knob. I saw that it had four settings. I decided to turn the knob to each of them, get out of the car, and see what was happening. I finally realized that I when I took off from the high camp in the afternoon, I had manually turned on the headlights so that all the lights on The Tiny would also light up, and that would let folks see my rig better. What I didn’t realize, because I had never driven from daylight to nighttime before, is that I wasn’t actually turning on the headlights, but the running lights, which are littler lights below the headlights and that are not meant for nighttime driving. Who knew? If I had not manually turned the knob, but left in on “Auto,” my headlights would have come on automatically upon nightfall.
So I lived to tell this tale. But what I should have done (and I’ll go ahead and “should” all over myself) is stop the car when I first noticed this problem, and try to figure out what the problem was. I could have played with the knob 90 miles and many self-harming hours of stress ago, figured out the problem, and driven calmly and safety to my destination. So that is a lesson I thought I’d already learned, but which I apparently forgot: “When something is wrong, pull over safely, get out, look at it, think, figure it out.” Don’t just barrel along for hours in pure ignorance and fear. I hope I remember this lesson.
So I escaped the storm. I spent time with my sister. I proceeded to my next campground and set up a spectacular camp. There were problems. Mistakes were made. But I’m alright. And I will continue on.