Recap: The 50th bday trip destination plans were as follows: Flagstaff, Joshua Tree, and Baja California (that’s in mexico for those of you that graduated from Glide High and don’t know geography haha) Those were our top 3 goals. If other things ended up in the trip so be it, but we had tickets for an event in Flagstaff, I was adamant about finally making it to Joshua Tree National Park and we were planning on spending most of the rest of our 6 weeks in Baja California, north and south.
May 13th 2019 5pm departure
We left approximately 4 days and 8 hours later than planned. Let’s be clear, I was ready. We were about to hit The Dalles when I started obsessing about the *free almond/coconut milk coupons burning a hole in my preverbal pocket . I was afraid that we’d get out of Oregon and the stores wouldn’t have the almond/coconut milk brand I like for my tea. I felt stupid asking to stop when we’d only been on the road 1.5 hours. But an obsession to save $2.50 AND get the product you like can be a fairly motivating factor in my mind. Apparently :) I’m sure the question arises, as to why I hadn’t gone to the store earlier while I was literally waiting around to leave. Great question indeed. I didn’t fess up to my obsessive thoughts about the coupons and milk until much later.
As we pulled into the parking lot, going slower, there was a strange noise coming for the vehicle. Rolling windows down it became louder. After parking, getting out, coupons ready, Charlie inspected the wheels. One was quite hot to the touch. Very odd. He made a phone call to the person who had installed new bearings and calipers. Said friend thought it sounded like the caliper was not releasing, rubbing and causing the noise and friction. He advised slamming on the breaks to try and release it. At the time he was a mechanic and did this kind of work daily. Although in this case he did the work at home. Foreshadowing keywords “he was...”
After I successfully couponed/purchased a few *free almond milks and some for $1 off, and a few other important items like toilet paper, we left the store to try the quick fix. Now, slamming on the breaks while driving a giant camper seemed slighting disconcerting to me. Plus it didn’t work. Unwelcome noise continued. Charlie decided that he would take off the tires, duele situation, and trade out the caliper that was thought to be sticking. The caliper is part of the breaking system in case you didn’t know. Charlie certainly wins the award for quickest tire changer in the west. He has the worst tire karma of anyone I’ve ever met. He’s had at least 6 flats or blown out tires in the year I’ve known him. That’s just the 6 he’s told me about.
The second auto parts store had the part we needed. We found a flat parking lot and Charlie went to work to change the caliper. I of course was quite busy documenting this in my instagram story. I did have to assist by pressing the break peddle down a few times to bleed the break line.
And viola! 9:30 pm and we are back on the road. Did I mention this was a planned 6 week road trip to celebrate our joint 50th birthday with the new to Charlie camper? I had painstakingly measured all the cabinets and drawers to find appropriate fitting storage solutions and tried to pack efficiently and minimalistic as Charlie would allow. He and I have very different ideas of needs and comfort when it comes to travel and camping. The camper is a 2006 Canadian made Okanagan 4 season camper. It’s nice, but the largest camper I’d ever seen! It seemed excessive to me at first but after cleaning it and making some new curtains, and organizing our things in it, it was starting to feel like a nice little home for the next 6 week.
Ok, so we are back on the road, and the noise had stopped. Yay! For about 5 miles. Then the noise was back! F-balls. A couple miles more and there was a strange lurching pulling sensation! I thought a tire had blown. But all the tires were still in place. Charlie decided to turn around and head back to The Dalles, very slowly. We had 3 more days to get to our destination in Flagstaff Az, so one more day wouldn’t hurt. We got turned around and after a couple miles it was clear this wasn’t going well. We were able to safely pull over (please note the part of 84 just east of Biggs junction is not the best place to breakdown, there is a lot of truck traffic and hardly any shoulder! Which makes no sense since there is a lot of traffic there should be space for breakdowns!) It was a mystery but we suspected it to be bad it seems the rear axle had seized up. The above mentioned camper is heavy(approximately 4,000lbs without water and our stuff), and even with the 1 ton truck and dually situation it was still a little bit of a question in our minds, although I think no one wanted to actually say it aloud. Previous to this Charlie had taken it to canada with a friend on a different 1 ton truck without duallies and may have literally shredded two aluminum wheels on separate occasions on the Canadian trip. Since then he had changed trucks, bought steel wheels and switched the truck back to it’s original dually sitch. Sadly this also meant the part (a large part) of his travel fund money was spent getting the truck ready.
Charlie called his RV tow insurance company and explained the size, length, set-up of camper and by the time the operator located a flatbed tow truck, she said it would be around 12:43- 12:52 am before he arrived from Maupen. The driver called to confirm the size of the everything to make sure the flatbed would work. The tow truck finally arrived at 1:45am. The great thing about a breakdown with a camper is a place to lay down!
Loading the F350 with a 4+k lb camper hanging 5’ off the backend of the truck looked terrifying. It was so steep the back ofthe camper was almost touching the road as it drove up the flatbed. Not to mention the flatbed only had 1/2” - 1” clearance on either side of the trailer wheel wells. They had to jack up the back of the camper to get the front of the trailer to come down to lock in place. One of the passenger side rear outside tires was barely on. The truck and camper were too heavy for the trailer and tow truck. The tow truck had to drive a max speed of 20mph due to fishtailing and some other really questionable situations like maybe it seemed the back end of the truck wasn’t always down? The tow truck driver said “This is the second craziest thing I’ve ever done.” I didn’t ask what the craziest thing was.
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Tuesday 3:30am we went to bed at the Les Schwab parking lot, in The Dalles Oregon. 10.5 hours after leaving my house we’d made it about 75 miles in to our planned approximately 5,000 mile trip. The plan was to get to Flagstaff for the Overland Expo by Thursday night. Then slowly make our way into Baja Mexico all the way to the point and back, my only hardline in the destinations was in Joshua Tree National Park, as it’s been on my list for a while. As we drifted off to sleep we still had hope we’d spend our 50th birthday on a beach in Baja California, Mexico.
*How I received free almond/coconut milk coupons - I had complained about the almond coconut milk I purchased a month prior. The texture was not right, it was clumpy and odd. Although didn’t smell bad or taste bad. Thanks Blue Diamond, who I’m sure isn’t the best company or quality but it is the best consistency and price for my liking that I’ve tried so far. It also comes unsweetened which is nice.
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