Month: July 2019

Saturday, July 20, 2019. Day 6.

The usual Holiday Inn Express Breakfast. We’re near a big sports center, so there are a lot of teenage athletes here for various tournaments. We’ve seen baseball players and basketball players, male and female, here. They load up on the breakfast, shovel it in, and stumble back out.

After breakfast, we took a walk. We found out there’s a park right behind our hotel with a short path connecting the two. We walked about a mile, wandering some really lovely trails as well as a wide asphalt road. There was a swing overlooking a creek, so we sat for a moment, enjoying the green and the water.

 

Back at the hotel, we looked up the nearest truck wash and decided that was today’s project. After hooking up the truck and trailer, (our second time on our own–it’s getting easier), putting the address into my phone, we headed north.

Dave had talked to a couple of friends yesterday who had experience pulling trailers and he’d made a couple of adjustments. He felt better about how the truck and trailer felt today, compared to our trip here on Thursday. I could also feel the difference. We felt more stable, there was less swaying/fishtailing. So thank you, guys!

The scenery on the way was beautiful! Green. Lots of corn. Small farms. Small towns. We passed a small executive airport. An old cemetery. Lots of brick homes. I normally read while we’re driving, but not today.

On our way to the truck wash, we saw a Menard’s. We’d been told it was the local place to go for hardware. Kind of a cross between Home Depot and Fresno Ag. We pulled in and made our purchases. Some more boards for letting the trailer rest on when it’s unhooked. Some towels for wiping ourselves down after hooking up (have I mentioned the heat and humidity?) Dave needed a few minor supplies (washers, a drill bit). Then back to the truck.

We found the truck wash, about thirty minutes away from our hotel, without any trouble. We had to wait a few minutes for them to finish up the garbage truck ahead of us. They didn’t offer a towel off or drying service, so we hopped on the nearby freeway, hoping to blow off the worst of the water and reduce spotting. We only went a few miles and quickly turned around. The winds had picked up, so we didn’t feel quite as stable as earlier.

By then, it was 2:00 and we were hungry. Again. How odd. Considering we’d had breakfast 6+ hours earlier, walked a mile, hooked up a trailer in 80% humidity and driven 30 miles.

There was a Steak & Shake back by the truck wash, so we exited there and parked. Steak & Shake had been on our radar to try so it was meant to be. Except we seemed to have caught them at the end of a rush. We waited about fifteen minutes for a table. It was worth it. The burgers were really good. They advertise steak in the burgers (of course) and they did have a great flavor, a nice char, and the toppings were fresh and there was a wide variety to choose from. We were so hungry, I forgot to take a picture. We both had a pretty basic burger. I had a single cheeseburger. Dave had a double bacon cheeseburger. We shared some fries. We were less impressed with the fries. We agreed the burger can easily hang with an In ‘n Out, but In ‘n Out’s fries are far superior. Dave had coleslaw which he also liked and compared to KFC’s. And since we were at Steak & Shake, well … it’s in the name, so we had to. We chose the Reese’s Chocolate Peanut Butter shake and it was amazing. Thick, chocolatey and peanut buttery. Alas, no picture of that either.

Because of the trailer, our trainers had recommended we use a different map app. One that would tell us if there were roads we couldn’t take the trailer down. I decided to use that app for the way back to the hotel, since I already knew the way. It was incredibly annoying. My phone is synced to the truck’s stereo/navigation system. We had the radio on, but instead of interrupting the radio to tell us something the app would just stop the radio, tell us the info and not return to the radio. Argh. Then when it was time to get off the freeway, it gave contradictory information and we missed our exit. The written directions said to take Exit 129B, but the map (and the street we knew we were on said we should have taken 129A). I was looking at the written directions, so we missed it and had to be rerouted. By then, I was D.O.N.E. with that app and opened my trusty Google Maps. I have a lovely British female voice give me directions and she immediately told me exactly where to exit and turn around. I closed the annoying app.

Except it refused to close! I exited the thing. I did the swipe up to close. I did everything I know to exit/close/shutdown an app, short of restarting my phone. So we had my lovely British Google Maps friend directing us, as well as a rude, mechanical-voiced harpy telling us to “TURN AROUND NOW.”

We managed to tune her out and made it back to the hotel, albeit a bit frazzled. We parked and proceeded to unhook. Dave said to time him, so I set the stopwatch.

We did it together (sort of–he does the heavy lifting) and did it in just shy of ten minutes. Then we got back to our room and collapsed. It was 4:00. It took us pretty much all day to get one 32′ trailer washed. Oh, and it’s covered in water spots. So, it’s not ready for its television appearance on Monday.

Sigh.