FAIL: Our First Night As Trailer Owners

To start off the new year, I thought I would tell a funny story. This was definitely a FAIL.

We searched for our trailer for over a year. I did not want to buy new, but the floorplan and size we were looking for was never in the used market. The new ones would sell like hotcakes. It seemed that the further North we went, the more likely we would be able to find our trailer. We ended up all the way up in Upland, about 120 miles away. Ugh. Once we signed all the paperwork and got hitched up, it was rush hour(s). We hid out at a nearby casino while it died down. By the time we got home, it was late, dark and we were tired. 

Rule #1 for trailer ownership: Don't do anything related to the trailer (other than rest inside of it) when you are tired. Nothing good will come of it.

We recently had our driveway widened and redone with pavers, mostly so we could park the trailer in the driveway as well as both vehicles. *fake sneezes* Naive! Here's the thing about our driveway, it's on a slope. And not just an uphill slope, it's a multiangled grade uphill.

Our brand new trailer has these skid plate triangles under the back bumper, technically called a tongue skid. I had never seen anything like that before. It's supposed to protect the back and underneath of the trailer from whatever might hit it. Like my driveway. Those suckers HIT the pavement dead on when we started backing the trailer in. WHAT?!? So here we are, we've spent a lot of time and money creating a space specifically for trailer ownership and the damn trailer can't even make it into the driveway!?! I'm furious and Cabana Boy is frustrated. We are at our wits end. Tired. Realizing we just wasted a lot of money buying something we can't even store ourselves. We decided it was best to take the trailer up the hill and park it in front of a neighbors house, on the street, but level. We would deal with this the following day with rest and sunlight.

See that "triangle" that's dug into the pavement? That's a "tongue skid." 

Here's a close-up of the lil' fracker. 

Oh... The bumper cap vibrated off during the Fire Tour 2020 trip. I finally had a reason to get those magnetic ones I always wanted.

That reminds me... Rule #2: I'm sorry for whatever was said while backing up the trailer. It's a real thing. They have merch with this quote printed on it.

We had successfully detached the trailer from the truck and pulled the truck away to level out the trailer. As we were turning the tongue jack we heard a loud pop. And the tongue jack stopped moving. We could crank, but no movement. I did a quick Goog and found that for some reason the roll pin broke. Most likely because it wasn't rated for the actual weight of the trailer. We determined we would be making a trip to Home Desperate in the morning. At least the trailer was almost home and safe for the night.

This little teeny tiny thing can give the biggest headache.

The next morning (and some good rest) rolls around and Cabana Boy had already purchased a box of pins and had started the work before I even woke up. Although graded for the appropriate weight, the brand spanking new pins broke one after another. I'm thinking "Great. New trailer. POS. Can't do anything about it. Dealer won't even return our calls. FRACK!!!!" This time, Cabana Boy had enough. He went to How Lowe's Can You Go and grabbed a new tongue jack. Holy cow! I don't know how he did it, because I was inside drowning my sorrows, but he managed to replace the tongue jack, hitch up the trailer, and back it into the driveway without any assistance. He's my hero! I did help a little with backing in. We figured out that we needed to come in at an angle and use wheel chocks at the curb. Whew!

Fast forward 18 months...With the brand new beefy leaf springs (because the originals cracked like chalk and had to be replaced) the suspension is high enough that we don't really have to worry about the tongue skids hitting the driveway anymore. AWESOME! We do still have to worry about the bottom of the tongue jack hitting ground though... Better get the sway system and truck trailer hitch looked at! And maybe fork out for that new powered tongue jack... Hmmm... Dreams.

It's always something. Fair warning to any future buyers.

Peace out - RNRTA

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