Vixen is our house. We live in her.. She follows us around as we travel the country. Camping in the places that keeps us close to the earth.
Last March. Vixen was wounded. One of her tires fell off. It was totally my fault. This post is a lesson in maintaining your house or you may end up actually homeless for a time.
We were driving up I-81 on our way to Base Camp where we would prepare for our next gig as camp hosts at Cunningham Falls State Park. It was a rainy, gray day and we were heading for our next Harvest Host location where we would spend the night before finishing this latest leg of our travels.
I felt nothing out of the ordinary, but a car came up next to us, beeping alarmingly and pointed at the back of the trailer. We quickly pulled over and got out to check it out.
This is what we found.
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| Failed Wheel Bearing |
One of our wheels had fallen off. Not gone flat. Fallen Off. We were about to become Homeless with three wheels.
We sat on the side of the highway for a few minutes, trying to figure out what to do next. Of course, I immediately went into troubleshooting mode. We have road-side service with our insurance company, so that was the first item on the to-do list. I called and give them my information and described our situation. They told me they would call back when they had found a tow for us.
I started searching the area for RV Repair places, not wanting to sit idle while every truck that came by shook and rattled our poor baby as we sat inside. I had lowered the stabilizers, but the the rear, driver side stabilizer had been damaged as the tire rolled out from under the trailer.
I found an RV repair place about 15 miles up the road and he told me to bring it in. He also mentioned that he could provide a tow if the insurance company has any trouble finding anyone.
The rain had slackened and then quit as we waited. Suddenly, we heard a knock on the door. I came out to see a trucker walking back to his rig. He opened his passenger door and pulled out my tire. He told me that a fellow trucker had put out a heads up on the CB radio and he had located the tire and brought it to me. I guess it wasn't too far back, but this was great. The tire was still fine, but the wheel bearing had broken apart which was how the wheel had just come off. I had been planning to have the bearing re-greased when we got to camp, but I was at least a year late on the maintenance and apparently this is what happens when you defer maintenance too long.
Eventually, the insurance company called back telling me that they couldn't find anyone to tow me. I gave them the RV Repair information and in about another hour and a half, a tow truck showed up with the RV Repair guy.
They chained up the axle, hooked it up the the repairman's truck and headed out. We noticed that he was driving pretty fast, but thought he knew what he was doing. Shortly after that, smoke started coming out of the other tire. He pulled off the highway and they took their time re-chaining the axle. This time he went slower and we had no trouble getting to his shop.
After a quick check of the damage we were told that we needed a new axle and it might be a five week wait for it to come in. "Supply issues" due to COVID of course.
We checked into a local motel for the night to decompress and plan our next move and the next morning we went back to the shop and removed all we could of importance from the trailer and transferred some unneeded items from the truck.
Sadly, we left Vixen in the lot as we headed north to Maryland. I called our volunteer coordinator at the park and told them we will be several weeks late for our camp host gig. No worries, she said. Our spot would be waiting for us.
We spent a week at our daughters, then a couple weeks in Philly at Lisa's father's house. We were on our way to Cape May for another week or so when we got the call that the axle was in and they would have it ready in a few days.
After a couple days at the shore, We headed back to Philly and I continued on the next day to VA. I got a room about 45 minutes away from the shop and picked up our house the next day. I didn't even mind driving through some spring snow on the way down.
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| Snow |
I checked out the repairs and talked to the mechanics about several different things. I had all four tires replaced and the bearings greased. I once again reinforced in my head the importance of not deferring important maintenance for the trailer. We now had better tires than we had, a new back axle and freshly greased wheel bearings.
Everything was pretty much back in order and I headed out with our house behind me once again as it should be.
I headed straight to the Campground and pulled into our camp host site. A week later, I went and picked up Lisa and Ginger and everything was pretty much back to normal after that.
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| All fixed |
An unexpected adventure that I prefer not to repeat in the future.
Peace,
Homeless On Wheels
Adventures with Vixen
