So we finally hit the road on Sunday. Wow… it took so much energy to overcome the inertia of endless preparation and actually hit the road. We had a grand plan to get up really early and get a lot of miles under our belts, but alas, it was not to be.
My mother cooked us a nice breakfast, because she wanted us to get off to a good start. We stowed a few final items, and Jeff backed out the rig (I still have not attempted to back it out of the driveway). I hopped in and drove it to our connection point, a parking lot for a business that is closed Sunday morning, which just happens to be right next to the highway onramp. Jeff followed along in FINSUP, with the tow dolly behind FINS. Our plan was a quick hookup and then off we’d go.
Jeff parked FINS behind the rig, detached the dolly, and dragged it over to offer it up to the receiver hitch. That is when we hit the wall… WHERE was the RECEIVER DROP HITCH? OMG… where could it be???? Jeff had special ordered an extra long one with a 4.25 inch drop so that the tow dolly on the lower hitch receiver would not interfere with the bike rack on the upper hitch receiver.
Jeff was pretty angry. He hopped into FINS and drove home to look for it. At that point, we thought it must be in the carriage house or something. I thought it might have been at the bottom of the load in FINS. Well, it was no where to be found.
My theory is that it was stolen off the back of the Silver Surfer on Tuesday evening when I had parked in a sketchy area. We lost a tail light out of the Surfer that evening. It might have fallen out, but based on the way the wires were dangling and how those lights attach and since we had not driven off road or even on a particularly bumpy route, Jeff thought it must have been stolen. I think that the hitch ball was in the Surfer’s hitch receiver that night too, but since it was new and not usually there, we did not notice that it was missing. Grrrr.
Well, if it ever turns up, we’ll let you know, but Jeff was able to buy a serviceable replacement at an Auto Zone that was not extra long but that luckily still seems to work under the bike rack. We finally hit the road around 10:30 AM instead of before 8 AM. Thankfully, the Auto Zone was open relatively early on a Sunday morning and had something in stock that would do. Thank you, Auto Zone…. you saved the day!
The rest of day one was pretty much a blur. After the hitch incident, we were both exhausted. We made it as far as Buffalo. I drove about 2 hours, and Jeff drove the rest of the way (I’m still getting used to driving the RoVerhauler).
We spent last night in a Flying J outside of Buffalo. We should have asked Nadira the names of the number one, two and three best Buffalo chicken wing places… she had some pretty strong ideas on that. Ah, well, we were pretty exhausted by the time we pulled in there… it is not like we actually would have had the energy to seek out even the best buffalo wings in the world!
Tales of the RoVerhauler 