All This for Little Old Us?

Jill's Journal: Why, yes, unfortunately, all this was for little old us. It turns out life on the road is never, ever dull. We started the day in Willits, packing up to leave in the middle of a winter weather advisory (I could have sworn it was May), a rain storm, a hail storm, and a high temperature of 44 degrees (isn’t it mid-May?).

Normally we probably would have delayed leaving for a day with weather like that, but the rain isn’t supposed to stop for at least four days and we already had reservations at our next place. So, we continued on, taking it slow and easy on the Redwood Highway. This, by the way, is an absolutely gorgeous stretch of road, if not somewhat hairy to drive a trailer through. Spectacular redwoods are everywhere and snaking alongside the road in one ravine after another is a beautiful river. There’s also a disproportionate number of hitchhikers and other hard-core walkers/hikers with sleeping bags on their backs, even in the rain.

We had just left one of the most narrow sections of the road, where it’s only one lane weaving through the trees in each direction, and were transitioning to a wide section when the fifth wheel blew a tire. Perhaps “obliterated a tire” is a better way to word it. A blow out is a dangerous situation in any vehicle and, we learned, exponentially more intense with a 42-foot trailer.

Thankfully, Rob was able to maneuver over to the side of the road and it took less than two seconds to realize there was no repairing this without help. Before long, a California Highway Patrolman joined us. And then came another. So, there we were on the side of the road – Rob and me, three kids, and two cops in the rain, all waiting for roadside assistance. In hindsight, it sounds kind of comical but it was anything but funny at the time.

After about 2 1/2 hours and one of the officers commandeering my phone more than once to “discuss” with the roadside people that he was closing down lanes of a major highway and they needed to get a move on it, our knight in shining armor, or at least in a yellow truck and with a really fancy jack, arrived. He told Rob that if we’d gone another 150 feet before pulling over that it would have destroyed our brake system, the mechanism on our main slide out, and who knows what else…but it would have undoubtedly been thousands of dollars in damage and perhaps weeks without our home. Obviously, we’re very thankful to “just” have to buy new tires this week.