Moving Tip # 52: Don’t get the truck before you can use it.
OK, you can say that we needed the truck for a month for the space to put things as we dug out of our abode, but this is not a very cost-effective option. Use it if it is your only option.
August 1: one box in the truck.
September 4: truck and Prius stuffed to the gills and the aforementioned five bikes on the roof.
Weight limit pushed? Yeah, we got that. HOWEVER, we were approved and allowed to proceed uninterrupted at two truck scales. How close to the limit were we? We tossed the sodas we were drinking before weighing.
Sunday, September 4 around 10:30 we pull out of Carleton Street for the last time.
The truck groans and moans to 15 MPH and I ease back on the gas. This could be a long trip. Still getting used to a big (although not big enough) truck with a car-trailer, I head for the Caldecott Tunnel. That’s my usual way out of town heading for Interstate 80 and I was thinking about a final farewell to Mt. Diablo. However, just before entering the freeway, Dale remembers that she and Jamila discussed the onramp construction seriously narrowing the onramp and that they decided the trailer was too wide. It is wider than the truck. I’ve been thinking about the same thing and committed to the route. With veritable inches to spare on each side, I slip into the tunnel.
Focus. No showboating with looking at gauges or barely in the mirrors. I am FOCUSSED on my lane. Once through the tunnel, we do get a nice look at Mt. Diablo as I settle into my intended cruise rate of 55 MPH. It says so right on the trailer: 55 MPH and I may have mentioned that we have the truck a wee bit full and heavy.
We began acclimating Vinnie to his crate two weeks before leaving so while he did not think much of the truck or the motion, at least he had his “bed.” Macy was on the job as usual, taking her responsibilities of riding shotgun way too seriously.
Climbing the Sierras was slow going as expected, like 25 MPH. Sort of like my old VW long ago. The first real surprise and concern occurred descending from the summit toward Reno. I planned to keep the speed in check and not let the heavy truck get away from me, but I did not expect the brakes to overheat so quickly and shutter and shake the truck to the point that I was worried I might lose control. Seriously. I got it slowed and downshifted the transmission to 2nd which gave me some deceleration in spite of being an automatic. Later I learned to keep the speed below 35 from the beginning of any real descent.
For the first push, we intended to drive straight through the first night, which we pretty much did. During previous cross-country drives with Dale, she always got burdened with Nevada. I just fell asleep at Stateline. Determined to break this tradition, I coffeed up and pressed on. The Ruby Mountains in eastern Nevada were significant but not significantly more challenging than the Sierras. We took our first real attempt to sleep in the truck for a few hours just before Salt Lake City at the Salt Flats. We have been there before and could not spend any time, this time, but it was just as impressive as ever watching the sunrise over the alien environment. Erie and beautiful.
Let's take a closer look.
Dark Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans: Keeps ya goin!
The next real concern came at climbing out of the Salt Lake area. The hill was steep and long. I expected the truck to slow as during the Sierras, but not as bad as it did. It just kept slowing, finally holding at 10 MPH. We were seriously concerned that it would reach a point and just stop. Before we started out, I joked that we were going to end up in Auburn, CA rather than West Windsor, NJ because that would be where the truck blew-up. Now I was seriously worrying that our new home would be on the shoulder of Intestate 80, just east of SLC. With relief, we summited and I descended the other side at about the same speed.
About this time, Macy’s glomming all over Dale in her lap was beginning to wear. We grabbed one of her plush beds and put that on top of Vinnie’s crate. Macy was all over that! She supervised the rest of the trip from her Harbor Master’s chair.
She eventually learned to spread out so as to rest on both Dale’s and my shoulders as she slept under my fleece jacket. Macy was loving life and Vinnie could really give a care about what was happening.
Too trashed from not sleeping, we got a room in Utah somewhere. I think. Carrying Vinnie in his crate into the room he got very scared and Macy was very anxious. Something was seriously wrong. The room smelled funny to us, but we could not find a real problem. I think that it was just insecticide futilely combatting the crickets. They own that part of Utah in spite of what humans may think. I got a few hours of sleep, but Dale and Vinnie merely waited for something terrible to happen all night long without getting any rest. In the morning we hit a Starbuck’s and hit the road.
Have you ever watched a movie containing a sub-plot for one character to manage? We were heading right for Rock Springs, WY. 30 years ago, a cross-country trip in my VW bus with my young brother came to grief in Rock Springs, WY.
In a January blizzard around 0 degrees late at night I was trying to get over a summit before stopping for the night. The snowy road, wind, and driving snow were brutal. The bus lost traction and fishtailed a couple times, but driving with the arrogance of youth, I recovered each time and pressed on. Then I lost it. With each correction of the slide, the fishtailing became worse. The rear of the bus slid one way and then the other, back and forth, getting worse each time until I slid sideways into the highway median and over three feet of powdery snow. Jerry awoke at some point during this sliding around and as I hit the median the bus flipped on its side and spun to a stop. I had made a platform for a bed in the bus so we could sleep in it and stow all our stuff below it. All of this ended up on top of Jerry and I hung from my seatbelt. I called out for Jerry in the dark and he said that he was OK. As I dug him out of the pile of everything, a trucker who had witnessed this entire thing had stopped and approached the van with a flashlight not knowing what to expect. I opened the sunroof, grabbed a down sleeping bag, and Jerry and I got out. The trucker took us to his toasty warm cab and called on his CB radio for a tow-truck. A nurse in another vehicle stopped to bandage a small cut on Jerry’s head with enough bandage and tape for a head transplant.
That was the beginning of a three-month saga to fix my bus and get it home and those emotional scars remain with me. This weighed heavy on my mind returning to Rock Springs, WY now as it does every time I’ve passed through there since. During a great road trip with Dale and Jerry during the summer some years ago, I revisited the crash-site and the three-sided barn in which I lay on the ice for a week working on my car. Haunting. This time however, was different somehow. At sunset we pulled into a little park in Rock Springs, WY as the sun set. Kids were riding bikes around in the evening heat that was easing. Other kids were skateboarding in a ramp park. Dale and I fed and watered Vinnie and Macy, sipped cool sodas and talked. It was very healing this time.
