As you read in my previous entry, my first experience towing the trailer went well but not without some truck trouble. Despite that, I thought I’d give towing another try and pull it from Sebastian Inlet to Kissimme, FL. About a 2 hour drive.
All was going well for about the first 30 minutes when the noise we thought was something stuck in the right front truck tire or hubcap for the last 2 weeks finally revealed what it was. The noise got worse and then the truck started to vibrate in a not so good way. This happened on a stretch of highway A1A with no shoulders to pull over on so we couldn’t stop and check right away. Had to drive for a few more minutes before we found enough space to pull over in front of a motel. While I was driving, Dave was watching that front right tire out the window and he saw it wobble...didn’t tell me what he saw but I was directed to pull over fast into that space.
The freaking wheel had almost fallen off! When he removed the hubcap, 2 of the lug nuts had been sheared off. Holy crap! My 2nd time towing the trailer, 2nd truck problem...just call me LUCKY! NOT! Thankfully it was easy enough for Dave to fix and we hoped the remaining 6 lug nuts were enough to keep the wheel on.
So this kinda freaked me out, making me chicken out and bail on the rest of the drive. Dave took over for 15 minutes and felt good about his repair job holding up the rest of the way to Kissimmee, so we switched and I drove again. It was good experience to get some highway driving in, at 60 mph you can’t even feel the 5th wheel trailer behind us. Having both front and back brakes working also made stopping so much easier! Imagine that :-) Got some more experience with left & right turns, pulling the trailer for the 2nd time was so much less stressful, once the minor accident was taken care of.
Got to the campground safe and sound but when we arrived, they didn’t have our reservation. Ever have one of those days? Turns out somehow, our Jan reservation was documented as Feb. Luckily, thankfully, they still had a site for us and could store the trailer while we’re in Costa Rica and take us the airport. Not sure how the mix up happened but it all worked out. It was a good karma day after all but man do I need a drink!