Untangling the Truck

A bottle jack. Who knew there were these ultra small jacks that work with hydraulics, don't cost a lot and can lift 8,000 pounds. Ish knew. My first experience in our new home of Carson City was going to be at Home Depot. As much as I love Home Depot, and I do LOVE Home Depot, I have become accustomed to the Los Angeles attitude of help. Here I was going to be walking into the massive store with no idea where such a device would be and in LA no one will help you.

You walk into a Home Depot in the Southern California area and employees actually run and avoid eye-contact. They do everything they can to look as busy as possible to keep from having to tell you where anything is. Now in their defense, the typical person in a Home Depot in SoCal probably knows NOTHING about home repair and couldn't find even the most simple things. Couple that with an entitled attitude and I wouldn't be keen on helping either. But when you are in a hurry or can't find the needle in the haystack bolt you are looking for, a little advice is handy.

I brace myself as I walk through the door already on the lookout for someone so I can beeline it to the person before they can play "duck and dodge." Thoughts of Christopher alone with the RV just "trying" a few things leaves me with images of the entire thing knocked off its wheels, lying on the ground or the back half of John's truck laying on the ground. How do you explain that one!?

Suddenly, I am the one under sneak attack. Out of no where comes and employee who asks, "Can I help you find anything today." I stand in stunned, confused silence. This has NEVER happened before. I, of course, stutter out some version of a response along the lines of, "I am looking for a jack, but one of those bottley ones that can lift a lot of weight. It's hydraulic I think but I don't really understand how it's in a bottle and how it doesn't cost a fortune but my Grandfather said...." and I realize the guy is already leading me in the direction. I fully expect to be abandoned in the "general area" to fend for myself. Nope. He stays, searches through the area, finds the bottle jacks, goes over the options and tells me what he thinks will work best. Holy cow! This is the fastest I have ever gotten out of a Home Depot and with the right thing.

Back at the new digs, we know we are supposed to use a board to equalize the pressure on the frame. Done. What we didn't know, was this crazy powerful jack could shoot right through the board making a terrifying noise as the small, circle jack top hits the metal frame. Normally, not that scary. But you've seen what we have been dealing with on this trailer. I am fraught with thoughts of the dynomo splitting through the metal and the entire trailer falling over. This is not a logical fear but one none-the-less.

We prop the RV up and up and up and UP some more. Now even Chris is getting nervous. The freakin ball will not release from the truck. We almost have the jack fully extended and even though I have been running around like a hamster on a wheel cranking up the four corner jacks, as the RV becomes taller and taller my fear of it listing to one side grows exponentially. With a large "THUNK" the truck is finally free of the trailer and we begin the process of leveling the entire RV. Well, almost.

Chris has driven the truck all the way from SoCal up to here. I remember my uncle's instructions very well, you don't have to use first and DON'T push on the gas. It is a fuel injected system and will go on its own. What I forgot in all of that is the fact the truck is on a minor slant and having the clutch pushed in is the same as having it in neutral. I start to pull the truck out and instead of going forward the truck lurches backwards. Mind you the tow hitch is right near the precariously propped up bottle jack and the front of the trailer. Chris screams, I scream and slam on the gas proceeding to skip-chug down the road until I am a safe distance from the RV. Then I slam on the brakes and take the moment to gather my senses. From there on out I got along fine with the truck, but in that moment we were not friends. I think our "Home Alone" screaming moment introduced us to our new neighbors.

The Trekking RV Adventure

New house meets apartment.

Because nothing can be simple in this world, you have to expect there will be a few hurdles when trying to accomplish a major task such as relocating an RV from Garden Grove to Carson City. Especially one that had not been used in five years. After getting past a majority of the RV integrity and repair issues and completing Hacker work camp it was time to move the RV. I must clarify that while I am behind in my blogging, this all happened immediately following Hacker work camp because Chris needed to start work on the 8th. We began our trek on Friday the 5th after having schlepped up to Carson City to complete all the license and HR requirements.

We arrived at my uncle's house with no problems. Up to the top of the mountain, we exchanged trucks and got the low down on his six-speed diesel. The week before I had determined Bunny, my Honda Ridgeline, had earned her "big, big truck" badge for hauling motorcycles back up to Mammoth and then towing 7,000 pounds of rock to the yard. She may have a badge, but John's truck is truly a BIG BIG TRUCK. I listened diligently to all the rules such as "don't give it gas," it has an accelerator system, probably start in second gear, the gas gauge doesn't work, so don't take it lower than 1/2-ish, use the engine brake when going down hill, etc, etc. I was intimidated but we could do this!

Our only snafu was with Bunny as we did attempt to remove the ball from our tow hitch which did not go so well, but while John obsessed I got to hang with the girls so all was good. Home we go, making the day an 8ish hour adventure. We were about 30 minutes from home when some guy comes screaming up the side of the truck. Now in LA traffic this just means he is going 15 MPH as we are practically sitting still. He announces that our "fuel pump is hanging." Chris diligently pulls over and I run around the back of the truck. See, John keeps two huge built in gas pumps in his truck, one for regular, one for diesel. I assume the pump for one of those were hanging but neither was. Oh, well. Crazy guy, back in the truck.

About 4 minutes from home Chris hears and feels a big "clunk." Not good, but things are in the road all the time in LA, the truck is still running we must be good. As we unload Chris is about to take off to run a few errands so we can leave first thing in the AM. Best laid plans and all that, his car battery is dead. In all fairness it has been sitting for a week and has a faulty interior light that likes to turn itself on. Either that or the ghost of his grandmother watching over us, either way, the battery was dead, dead, dead. The auto car lock clicker won't even work. As I wait for the elevator to take our bags to our apartment he is going to pull the truck over to jump start the car. He arrives back at the elevator with wide-eyed look of "oh, crap!" Come to find out the "fuel pump" the man had been speaking of was actual the fuel pump for the truck that was now hanging down off the bottom of the truck. Not good.

A quick call to my uncle and all we need is a bolt, a locking nut and some baling wire. No problem, IF we had a running car. As we wait for AAA for the jump-start, we inspect the underside of the truck. Chris remains befuddled as there are two holes but they don't line up. I share with him, John knew all too quickly exactly what I was referring to, so he has probably done something funky and we should just do what he says. We determine we will pack tonight and get everything together in the morning as fast as possible. Adventure number one.

After seeking out all the appropriate materials, we get the truck up and running and head over to Samoff's house to pick up the trailer. Because of a small rainstorm, he became worried about our seals and worked on sealing all of our work again, meaning the other repairs were slightly behind schedule. Needless to say, he stayed up all night getting our lights hooked up so the trailer would be ready to roll. The paneling on the inside would be a project for Carson, that's cool. Hooking up the trailer went fairly well, with the exception of shooting the ramp out the side and almost taking out a very small magnolia tree. We pulled towards Disneyland and hit the road back to our apartment to load the RV. Driving the RV in the skinny streets of Long Beach and backing it up to our front door, adventure number two. Our soon to be ex-neighbors did not know what to think of the RV parked in front of our fancy building, but I think it is prettier than a moving truck. Finally loaded, we were off to Mammoth, only six or so hours late, but whatever.

One the road.....

An uneventful trip up ended at the house in Mammoth where we decided we needed an extra night. It is Saturday, so we have to get the RV up to Carson on Sunday, Chris starts work 7am Monday. We reluctantly get up the next morning, feverishly load the trailer, get the mattress in (adventure number three) and I get the moniker "clock-watcher" as I keep pushing Chris to stop being a perfectionist, we need to get on the road. After a brief stop at Mono Cone we keep pulling all the way to Carson. A lesson I didn't want to learn was that all those people who tell you fuel efficiency is much better at 55 MPH, they are right. We made it all the way from Long Beach to Carson City in the Honda Accord on one tank of gas. 500 miles. I hate that driving slower saves fuel!

Mammoth house meets Carson home.

Home free. We made it 15 minutes before the front desk closed at our RV "Resort" (thank you clock-watcher), got our spot, pulled in without incident and set about to free the truck from the RV. Adventure 4: Not so fast....The jack that pumps the trailer up and removes it from the ball, broken. It worked fine hooking it up. Somewhere in the interim the pin fell out and there was no way to make the crank spin. Until it hit resistance, I could push it with my finger or a stick, but that wasn't going to work for a 4000 pound trailer. A phone call to Ish was in order.....

TO BE CONTINUED......