Living life on the Slant

[Christyhicks]

So, guys, you've never lived, really lived, until you've lived life on the slant!

I'm laying on the couch, feet propped up on the wall (not for comfort. . .for keeping myself from sliding down to the low end), and I'm thinking, "You know what?  This is iiiinnnteeresting!"

You see, when they brought us in on the landall, it was necessary to deposit our rear wheels directly onto the run-up blocks, since we couldn't start the bus and back it up. . . (no oil, no startee  ).  With the rear wheels up, and the front end down on the ground, well, let's just say our air leveling system wasn't going to take care of the difference.

It wasn't too bad at first, as Dick and Brenda immediately provided us with electric, and we could have even had water if we had wanted.  Luckily, our tank was full, so even at that slant, the pump could pick up water!  (note to self: put pump at FORWARD end of tank on next bus. . .just in case!) 

It was interesting to adapt ourselves to life on the slant, starting with cooking. (Note to self: on next bus, put rail around countertop to catch mobile food items such as oranges, grapes, and especially EGGS!)  We soon found out that liquid items such as cans of coke do fine as long as you set them with the open side "up hill", but screw drivers, books, and shampoo bottles all have a tendency to roll, slide or tip over onto the floor when, yes, living life on the slant! (Note to self: buy more shampoo. .  . and eggs )

We started to get a bit silly as the evening wore on, becuase a person becomes more and more tired walking up hill to the bathroom and bedroom, and I blame that silliness for my painful injury.  You see, I was possibly exaggerating the steepness of the climb to the bedrom just a tad, pulling myself along the cabinets, when I took a large step and slammed my toe into a piece of woodwork!  Larry thought that was hilarious, but I didn't think it was too funny myself.  Firmly convinced that I had either broken my toe or at least severly bloodied it, I crawled to the bed (this time I HAD to crawl), and removed my sock.  Sure enough, there was a small amount of blood where I had knocked a chunk of meat off the top! (Note to self: buy bandaids when I buy shampoo and eggs.)

Luckily, Larry warned me to step onto the mat when exiting the shower, as he could just picture me stepping out on that ceramic tile and having to pick myself back up out of the living room when I slid the entire length of the kitchen on wet tile.  Showering was pretty easy, as you could just lean up against the wall. . . in fact, that's the most relaxing shower I've taken, as it was sort of like showering in a recliner! 

Sleeping brought a whole new problem, because the landall driver had also let the air out of our front passenger tire, which gave us a coumpound angle to deal with.  Our headboard was high, so that was good, but my side of the bed was low, which meant that throughout the night, I found myself hanging farther and farther off the side of the bed.  It wasn't just a matter of nudging Larry to get him over to his own side of the bed, because you had to get up and CRAWL back over to the high side  .  I finally just wrapped my leg around his, both to steady myself, and to make sure that if I went over, he was going with me!   That probably wasn't too smart, because I realized the next day that if I did go off and drag him with me, well, he'd just land ON TOP of me, but hey, it was 3:00 a.m., maybe I wasn't thinking as clearly at that time! 

OMG, A BIG HOUSE IS PASSING US ON THE INTERSTATE. . . LOOK FORWARD HONEY, DON'T LOOK AT HIM, JUST LOOK FORWARD,. . . JUST LOOK AT THE ROAD IN FRONT OF YOU! . . IS HE GOING TO HIT OUR MIRROR?. . . WHEW! . . man, they drive the HECK out of those things don't they!  Ok, where was I?  Oh, living life on the slant.

When Larry woke up in the morning, still a little groggy,  he climbed out of bed and immediately slammed up against the wall in front of him!  THAT woke him up for sure, and the loud crash and cussin' woke me up, so he was able to warn me before I did the same. 

All in all, living life on the slant was just another one of our "adventures", and it really wasn't too bad.  Larry was a little stiff, I had a sore toe, but we came through it pretty well, I thought.  I even learned that you can put a metal handled paring knife, in the oven,  under the edge of your brownie pan, and you can make treats pretty darn well, LIVING LIFE ON THE SLANT!  Christy Hicks

[edvanland]

Christy:
You are quite a story teller.  Hope you toe is better. Thanks again for sharing your experiences.
ED
MCI 7

[brojcol]

I'm liviing life on the sly, is that similar???

[kyle4501]

And some think the destination is the memorable part of the trip.

Those are missing the fact that the Journey can provide the best camp-fire stories! 

Way to go Christy!

kyle4501

PS - It was great meeting you at the rally, maybe next time we can talk more 

[Hartley]

Christy,

Been there done that. Rolled off the bed and into the floor (narrows) beside the bed. Not fun...

After hearing of you current "leak" problem what I follow with just happened to me..

I am oh so glad I didn't have any damage to my bus... Just a few haires standing on end..

Speaking of " With Every Trip and Adventure Awaits "... Yup Had another one....

Left here Wednesday at 2:30 pm. Ran all the way via a few rest stops to Charlotte. Picked up my printer
and headed back home...

For those of you who travel on I-95, I-26 and I-77 the latter two are not too bad..

However I-95 on the way up was so rough that as I went to get back into the drivers seat it rocked sideways..Hmmm
That's not good. I know that my air ride mechanism was shrieking is agony the whole I-95 route. Seems that it took
such a beating that 3 of the 4 bolts that hold the seat in place had lost their nuts and lockwashers.

I should have known... When I had arrived and opened the trailer it looked like a bomb went off and stuff that was originally strapped down was in other places ( mostly on the floor! ).

My Onan generator hiccupped and I got trash in the secondary inline filter. (cheap junk!) Probably something left from me rerouting the lines before I left. Found and fixed that.

So I spent the next few hours fighting for "lane adavantage" as at least a whole container ship kept passing me.
Fueled up with ULSD 15-ppm ( diesel ) That new stuff.. Smells different when burning too.
Fuel mileage dropped by almost 1 1/2 mpg on the new stuff and power was off.

Made it off I-77 onto I-26 and then onto " I-95 South " Yikes... It is a complete greek tragedy... I was tossed, beat, bumped and bottomed out so many times that I probably have bruises from the seatbelt....

That was the EASY part... I just knew things were going too well...

So just 7 miles north of exit 67 in Georgia.. It happened... Fog was all across the highway and you could see about 500 feet ahead if you were lucky...

Too wierd but a beautiful sight in my down looking camera. I hit a series of those killer bumps. On one I saw the tail of the trailer bang and flash a trail of sparks. Then I hit 4 more bumps and one huge monster bump and the light show moved to the hitch area between the trailer and bus. Hit a small bump and the flash happened again.. Ohooooooo..

I backed off the pedal, looked for a place to pull over. Meanwhile 4 semi trucks and 3 cars tried to run over me. Those large barrels they use in construction areas were still whizzing by on the right. I slowed and swerved between the barrels and off onto the paved shoulder lane. all the while trailing a shower of sparks.

Looked closer and the trailer was still hitched up, safety chains and plugs still connected , The trailer followed prefectly. I tapped the button for the upper camera only to find the marker lights and front of the trailer showing down at the bottom of the screen instead of the top.....

I stopped, and went back there to see a most unusual sight... The class IV receiver tube had broken loose at the rear bracket that is anchored to the bumper.. The tube simply broke the upper welds and pulled the metal apart and simply drooped the end with the trailer attached to the ground.

Oh..... Now if there was a viagra for metal that would have been easy...

My hitch was built from a Factory made Class IV bolt on hitch that was narrowed and installed by me with my own
flavor of anchoring to the MCI framework. My design and welding work held up.

I sat for a while after calling FMCA road service. They didn't have a clue where I was but since it was dark and I was out of the way of traffic I decided to wait until dawn to have them send a wrecker to pull my trailer....

So while 5,000 trucks blew by me and rocked the bus violently even though I was 15 feet off the side of the right lane I decided to try yet another signature drDave tricks. The noise from the trucks hitting the ditches that are labelled as "BUMP" was deafening.

Enter the Materials:   Large block of wood, Portable air compressor. 20 ton air/hydraulic jack, Truckers Chain with 15k limit.

Method (or Madness at 9:00 pm on a desolate road )...

I started out by starting the bus to get the air suspension up. Got the block under the edge of the trailer tongue and worked the tag axle valves to lift and slowly move the block farther under the tongue to get it high enough to get the bottle jack under the ball area. I then jacked the whole tongue up and worked it between the block and jack until I had  bent the receiver back into almost its original position.

I then wrapped the truckers chain around the receiver and extension and then around the bumper over and down behind the pulley area and looped it around the hitch and then anchored the hooks. Hoping that the chain and bumper would hold the hitch and ball up off the road so that I could move the bus a bit farther....

Well, I let the jack down. The chain tightend and clamped solidly into place. It held !

I put all my stuff away, bungeeed the engine doors together, Started up and took the brakes off...
as I rolled down the pavement I gently applied the trailer brakes fully expecting the whole mess to just
fall off... It actually held solid. So with nerves of Jello and this really squishy feeling I rolled ever so carefully down the road
only to find that the pavement ended into a ditch 300 feet ahead. I hit one of those barrels with the bumper and sent it rolling off
the road. Looked up and made the decision that since the fog cleared a little I would try to stay just off the side of the right lane and dive right if traffic wasn't changing lanes quick enough. So with my blinding quad LED trailer lights flashing I braved the right lane, I swerved a couple of times between the barrels to be out of the way and the trailer followed just fine.

I got up to 20 mph and then to 30 and had to swerve off and stop once or twice. got the lane back and ran at 40 mph watching the mirrors and camera and what surely was a problem happening ahead... There was this sign.. "BUMP AHEAD" and almost 3 seconds after passing the sign at 30 mph I hit another BUMP !.... Things rattled but held.. Then a sign, NO or SOFT SHOULDER ahead.... Ahhhhh... only TWO narrowed and barricaded lanes now and no place to hide.....

Well, I made it the last 6 miles, Traffic was changing lanes way behind me and off the Interstate I went, Up the ramp and turned left. Went to the other side of I-95 and found a place to park.. Made a few sharp turns expecting to hear the trailer fall off the back of the bus but it held....

I called a local towing company and asked if they new someone with a portable welder. They gave me a number to another
company and they sent their man out this morning. I aired up and put the jack under the hitch tube and shoved it back into the orginal postion and removed the chains. He arrived and worked on it for about an hour with me supervising...

So for $150 and a few hairy moments I am back home. I was 207 miles out. and as it turned out absolutely in the middle of nowhere with 4 convenience/gas places and a McDonalds/Gas place. Otherwise 20 miles from nowhere in the middle of Georgia...

The next time, When I am loading up stuff, If there's some tool that attracts my attention twice when I walk past it, It will get loaded in the bay of the beast. I had actually thought about taking my welder along. I actually had just about everything else..

A sign gets put in the bay. TOOLS - WELDER - Hose Clamps - Filters and 50 foot air hose.....

Christy,

Sorry I didn't mean to redirect your thread here....

I just couldn't help myself, You were having all the fun....

Dave.....