Check Your Nuts....Part Two

Perry, Georgia  (high 90, low 71)

We left the beautiful Georgia mountains yesterday morning.

We had some maneuvering to do to back out of our campsite at Paradise Valley CG.  It was a site where you pull in forward.  There was a long deck that was just about the entire length of the coach on the patio side.  The site angled right back into some trees at the end of the driveway.

We had done some tree trimming and thought we were okay, but with our long coach, and the deck preventing us from making any turns until we cleared it, we ended up right next to the tree.

We had to go back and forward a few times to get away from the tree and then into the road, around the corner and then out of the park.

There is no place to hook up the toad in the park without blocking traffic so we chose a large truck repair stop behind a nearby Chevron station.  I followed Al there and we proceeded to hook up the toad.

When we were hooking up, Al noticed the left  bracket on the truck appeared loose.  Upon further inspection, he realized one of the two bolts was loose and he was unable to tighten it.  He thought it had been stripped.   Two good ole Georgia boys stopped by to help and they tried to tighten the bolt as well.  No luck.  The other one tightened up well and they thought we would be okay to tow, but advised we check it after a few miles to make sure it was still tight.

After some debate, we decided to tow the truck behind the motorhome.  Plan B would have been for me to follow behind Al, but I was concerned with getting lost getting out of the mountains and over to highway 441.  I wanted to be in the coach with him, to help make sure we didn't miss any turns.   I am the "nagivator"  (as Erin calls it) in chief!

We hooked up and proceeded down the highway, but were able to stop a few times to check the bolt. It stayed tight so we kept on.

Our intended stop for the night was about 186 miles and all went fine until we hit some heavy rain about 20 miles from our destination.   We checked into the campground, waited the rain out and paid for our one night at Fair Harbor Rv Park, in Perry, Georgia.  It's fine for overnight and just minutes from the interstate.

Our first mistake was to listen to the man at the desk.  We told him we wanted a pull through site that was easy to get into.  He gave us a map and directions.   We should have checked it out ourselves because it involved going down a tree lined road (no problem) and then making a hard left back up the very next row.  Easy with no toad, or a smaller rig, not so easy for us. That hard left had trees on side and a ditch on the other.  We should have never attempted the turn with a toad because we couldn't make the turn sharp enough  and with a tow vehicle, we couldn't back up.   We didn't quite make it wide enough, so that was our fault.  One of the hazards of having a big rig.

We were stuck in the middle of the turn and had to unhook the truck.  Unfortunately, at this point it was at a severe angle and we had a devil of a time unhooking.

AND.....it started raining like hell again.    Oh what a lucky day, we were having!

Fortunately we had rain jackets, and got it unhooked.  We got into our site, but were soaking wet at this point.

What a day we had!

But, we were safe and sound and didn't crash and burn, so we were thankful.

I hope today will be a better day.

No pictures today....or probably any day until I get my Live Writer back on line.  I can't update it with my new Gmail password and it doesn't like the old one either.   Someone suggested I re-install it, and I'll try that as soon as I get  a chance.    In the meantime....I sure hate posting with Blogger.   It's so much more trouble than Live Writer.