Thursday, February 18, 2016

Fulltiming–It’s not all Fun and Games!

Foley and Flora-Bama AL 007

We have been on the road nearly five years and for the most part have not had any real bad mishaps. Sure we have had a ding or a scratch or a scrape or two but no real damage has ever happened to our rig. Well on Valentines Day 2016 that all changed…

The travel day morning started as many others as we performed our usual breaking camp routines! We had a longish day ahead of us in terms of time not distance as we were planning to drive along the beach roads from Mexico Beach over to Foley, Alabama. Everything was going good, even the slides all came in, as we got ready to roll. We were low on diesel so I looked in vain along our route for a diesel stop with a truck island making it easy for us to diesel up.

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I usually have no problem finding a good one and plot it in our GPS but I couldn’t find any along our route. So I told Sharon that we would simply have to check out all the gas stations and pick the one that looked like we could get into and out of easily. Boy was that a mistake!

Not too far down the road just outside of Panama City, Florida we spotted a Racetrack gas station on the other side of the road that had an outside pump with easy access. There was an RV in the spot so we decided to pass it up and u-turn back to it. We located a parking lot with an entrance as well as an exit and decided to pull into it to bide time until the RV at the pump had time to leave.

As I turned off the main road and tried to make the turn into the parking lot a lady driver didn’t yield to me and forced me to turn wider into the lot than I wanted. I was watching her in my side mirror to make sure I wouldn’t clip her when we heard a sound no RV’er wants to hear… CRUNCH!!!

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Apparently, unseen by either of us, a low hanging branch on a live oak tree hit the top of the rig and crushed our dome satellite cover. I stopped immediately (and I may have cursed at that time) and got out to assess the damage by climbing the ladder to view the top of the RV. The branch scraped along the front (top) of the RV damaging a small outside light,  breaking an antenna and crushing the King Dome Satellite cover. A scrape mark was left on the top damaging the paint but thankfully I didn’t see any damage to the front cap.

The only thing to do was backup and get out from under this branch. We unhooked the CRV and backed off of it. Then I navigated out of my predicament over to the exit where I began to pull forward when I heard CRUNCH!!! [$%#@^%$$]$# not again!!! This time I apparently caught a rock that was used as an edging as I was pulling out of the driveway. The drop from the driveway to the road was more than I anticipated and my tail end dropped lower thereby catching the rock which scraped out the back corner two driver side bay doors and put a nice dent in one of them along with a little fiberglass crack. Talk about insult to injury ....sigh.

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Well after all this we were able to diesel up, hook the CRV back to the RV and get back on the road. Although most of the damage is not major we were both a bit shook up and were stunned as to how this happened. We are always so cautious and careful yet ended up in this bad situation nonetheless. At least we got to Foley Alabama with no further issues and once we got settled in we were able to unwind.

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So what did we learn? ONE – I will never willy nilly look for a gas station again. In the future gas stops will always be planned out. TWO – We will avoid small store parking lots for any type of turn around THREE – the next time a driver doesn’t yield to me I will simply stop and tie up traffic till they are out of harms way. I think it was the distraction of that driver that kept me from seeing the low branch. The tree hugged the building so Sharon could not see the branches above from her vantage point either. We both heard it rather than seeing it....

Once we were able to realize that the damage was mostly minor (although it will be costly to fix and very inconvenient) we reminded ourselves how lucky we still are to be able to enjoy the freedom of our life on the open road. We enjoyed our visit along the sugar sand coasts of Alabama and look forward to our next stop in Louisiana. Sharon said all she could think of was the Shirelle's song lyric:

"Mama said there'll be days like this.
"There'll be days like this," my mama said".

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Despite our tribulations we had a great stay at Foley and enjoyed Flora-Bama as the perfect spot to put this incident behind us. Ahhhh but such is life on the road, not all fun and games, and a little unpleasantness can find you along the way…

We are now in Mandeville, LA for a few days before heading over for a month at Betty’s RV Park… We are looking for to the decompression time!

24 comments:

  1. So sorry to hear about the damage, but so glad no one was hurt. I tell Paul to always get gas when we are only 1/4 full. We never know when it might take a long time to find a gas station we can get into. Also, I use an app called GasBuddy. If you don't have it, it is free and works super.

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    1. Yep we use gas buddy and then look at the station on Google Earth... just weren't any good stations on this route...

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  2. Bummmmer.....so sorry.....I guess it's part of our life from time to time. Can't wait to see ya'll soon.

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  3. That's no fun at all! Just stopping and waiting until others move is a good idea. Don't take a chance.

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  4. I think that over the course of time we all have these little episodes. I now that we have had a couple as well. I am glad it wasn't anything too serious and that a lesson or two was learned.

    www.travelwithkevinandruth.com

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  5. Craig took a lot of dings in our first year. We feel a bit like we are stretching our luck lately because everything has been going so smoothly. We rarely have trouble getting in or out of gas stations. The Alfa is so super maneuverable, but I often am outside watching every corner as best I can. We don't check out the stations on Google Earth very often, but if on approach anything doesn't look good, we pass. The bigget thing I watch for is overhead clearance. Alfas are quite tall, almost 13', and if I don't see the numbers, sometimes it is a no go.

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  6. I feel your pain, but only to the point of making an impromptu fuel stop that was extremely tight in and out. We were fortunate to make it without damage . . . sorry! Since that time, I plot our fuel stops and only go to Pilot/Flying J where I can get in line with the "big dogs." We "follow the rules" (pulling to the line after fueling, etc.) and have never had any issues with other drivers. In fact, they have been friendly and, in some cases, helpful. I use the Pilot mobile app and AllStays Truck & Travel for plotting fueling stops on routes were Pilots are few and far between. Planning fuel stops may sound a bit over-the-top planning-wise, but it sure cuts down on the stress of travel days. Hope you can get repairs done with minimal hassle and $$!

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    1. We avoid highways for the most part so getting to a Pilot, Loves or Flying J is less likely

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  7. So sorry to hear about this. Fueling is one if our biggest problems too especially since we are gas and those lanes are seldom made for big rigs. Pilot works if you never leave the interstate. But who wants to do that. The aggregation and trouble of getting it fixed is the worst part since thankfully neither of you was hurt. Betty's should help with that.

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  8. Might as well slip on up to Red Bay, AL to the Tiffin factory. Several very good body & paint shops there :-)

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    1. we are going to Betty's and then to College Station and may have to go to Red Bay after that before our summer endeavors

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  9. Sorry about your mishaps. As an ex insurance adjuster, I can tell you that having a 2nd collision right after the first is kind of normal. We always use truck stops where it's much easier to get in and out. Yeah, it's going to be a pain to have it repaired, but at least it's still drivable and you could get to your destination.

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    1. Really it was all part of the same accident as I had no choice but to back up and exit my situation... Hmmmm, I wonder if the insurance company is going to treat it as two separate deductible accidents?

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  10. We can relate to accidents caused when fueling. We were not so fortunate as to get "just" scrapes. We pulled into a station and then saw bags over the nozzles. Pulling away hubby got too close to the barrier and separated the back cap on the fiver about a foot from the side. Entire living area exposed. As with you, these things can be fixed. All's good. Safe travels from here on, hear?

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  11. What a bummer. We have been there and know the feeling. We will be at Betty's on March 10. Looking forward to seeing you.

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  12. So sorry that happened to you and your beautiful rig. These beasts are just awkward to maneuver in good wide lanes, let alone small lots and small streets. Had a scrape up in Cape Cod with a stop sign-narrow streets and turns are no fun. Not so much damage Red Bay couldn't fix....

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  13. Ouch -- sorry to hear about your mishap. We're dealing with a broken door handle and had the steel hose attached to the kitchen sink faucet blow up on us ... luckily someone reported the water gushing out of the slide while we were out and the park manager turned off the water ... otherwise, we would have had a major mess on our hands.

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  14. Darn, darn and darn.. al least it was not major damage, just frustrating all the same.
    Good luck with the repairs.

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  15. Oh bummer. Glad it's relatively minor damage. This might make you feel better…
    http://ravenandchickadee.com/?s=between+a+rock+and+a+hard+place

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  16. I can feel my body tensing up. So sorry to hear about this. We have a couple of similar incidents we could share, but I am sure that hearing about them would not make you feel any better. Glad you are both OK.

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  17. So sorry to hear about your incident. In the overall scheme of life, no big deal only the hassle of repairs.

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  18. If you ever get to Foley again, we discovered a Sunday afternoon jam session and potluck outside of town that is incredible.

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