On The Road --- Finally !!!

April 6, 2015

Remember we talked about a loose schedule .... well part of that has to do with the weather.  We are not excited about putting this rig on the road during bad weather.  So here we are the first week of April, getting hooked up and preparing for travel.

Getting the trailer hooked up for the first time was fairly uneventful, until.....we checked the lights on the trailer.  Not only did nothing work, but we blew several fuses on the 'Bus'.  UGH !!
It was quickly discovered, that during the work setting up the brake/lite connection, I assembled it incorrectly, thereby grounding out the system.  After a short repair we were then ready to put the car in the trailer.

I mentioned, we'd never loaded the car in the trailer since we bought the trailer.
One of the things we liked about our trailer was that is was a low profile unit. That means... better gas mileage.  It wasn't apparent at that time, but this also means that the loading door/ramp would be shorter as well.  So getting the car loaded became very challenging because it sits so low.  But after some assistance from our neighbors and several pieces of wood under the door, we were able to get it in and tied down.

Buttoned everything up and one more walk around and we're finally ready.  This should be interesting.

Now please understand, we had not pulled the trailer with the 'Bus' prior to this .... it sure is a looonnnggg way back there.  We're just about 70 feet long!  Getting out of the parking lot on to the street gave us a bit of a feel regarding length and brakes.  I tested the brakes and handling as we headed for the freeway!  Though you could feel the additional weight of the now loaded bus and the trailer, it handled quite well and the power of our engine was very impressive!

Oh, did I mention we missed our departure mark of 10:00am?  We actually left at 2:00pm after making a quick stop at Vintage Iron & Restoration in Scottsdale.  We wanted to check everything out, especially the tie downs on the car before hitting the major highways. And, it  gave us another opportunity to say goodbye to our friends/work compadres.  Jackie had made some special cupcakes for the guys, we delivered those as well. 

Ahhhhhh, We did it!!  No issues, problems, etc. We're on the way, at last!  We are officially, unofficially, on the way to Monument Valley, UT.  Thank God we had a reservation at Gouldings RV Park which included a big pull through site.  With our late departure we knew we would be arriving in the dark.

About an hour into our travel, the view begins to change and the view through the front of the bus is unbelievable!  It's like a theater right before your eyes.  You don't miss a thing and it's bold and in your face!  Travel has another whole meaning when viewing from the 'Bus'!

 
As we climbed out of the valley toward Flagstaff, we quickly got the feel of the weight we were carrying .... gearing down to climb 6% and grades slowed our speed quite a bit. Thankfully here in Arizona these grades were short, so our time lines were not too delayed.  As I glanced over at Jackie, I could see she mentally had the "white knuckle grip" as we made our climb. She assured me she was fine but was concerned about "what goes up, must come down"....  Jackie asks, could our brakes and 2 stage jake brake hold all this weight, really? We're just over 65,000lbs.

It was at this early point in our trip that Jackie began an urgent question/answer period in how a jake brake really works and why it was necessary to have runaway truck ramps if these brakes work so well. It was bad timing to explain a full fledged explanation at this exact moment, but I did my best to ease her concerns to some extent.   I told her to sit back, relax, and enjoy the view.... uh huh, right!  She had more questions..actually, if the truth be known, I did too!  But we found on this first experience, the braking system did quite excellent.  Some trial & error with the jake's function certainly helped us for it to become more efficient. 

What was most interesting to both Jackie & I was as we traveled, how terrain changed .... even in just a few miles ..... And it was nice to be able to enjoy the views as we maintained a very casual pace. At this point, Jackie seemed to be doing much better and started to relax and enjoy.

The last miles to Gouldings was a bit challenging, very dark and very narrow roads.  But we rolled in, got checked in and it was an easy pull in and set up.  And the size of the pull through site was such, we didn't have to unhook the trailer.
We really had no idea of what the area looked like at this point.  All we knew is that we made a pretty good incline to get to it. No idea of our immediate surroundings because it was too dark and we were both pretty whipped.   It turned into a much longer day then we had planned.
The good news ... set up and prep to roll will be much easier the next time.

Our maiden voyage continues ..... stay tuned