Last week, Vicki was out of town, so I used the time to install a rack on the back of the trailer to carry the Blackstone grill. Afterwards, I wondered if putting the heavy grill that far behind the wheels would lever up the front (hitch) end enough to cause swap problems, so I loaded up and pulled the trailer out to the local CAT scale. First I weighed it all loaded and hitched, and then I wanted to unhitch the trailer and weigh the truck without the trailer, and the trailer without the truck. In order to get the trailer squarely on the 3rd weight pad, so even the hitch jack was on that pad, I had to back up a bit. Then for some stupid reason, I decided to use more wooden blocks under the jack than I normally use – mostly just to reduce the amount of extending and retracting of the hitch jack I had to do. I disconnected the weight distribution bars, and unhitched. Fine, I thought, ready to reweigh, except then I noticed the front tires of the truck weren’t on the front pad any more, so without thinking I pulled forward. Unfortunately I’d left the safety chains attached because I hadn’t been planning to pull forward, and I heard and felt a bit of a calamity happen when I pulled forward. I quickly jumped out and found the chains had pulled the trailer forward enough that the hitch jacks had toppled the stack of blocks, and make a big bend on the rear part of the hitch jack pad. Fortunately it had landed on the weigh pad, so I took my data and then got the hell out of there, properly hitched and with my tail between my legs, feeling like an idiot.
After that, I took the trailer back to the storage lot. I was feeling pretty good about myself because I’d backed it into the spot in one shot, almost erasing the shame of the previous error. Once again, I used the bigger stack of blocks. But when I pulled the lever to release the trailer hitch from the ball on the truck hitch (too many hitch words, got to come up with something better), the truck fell further than usual, and the trailer jumped enough that it fell off the blocks again. This time it fell off the back of the blocks, and so bent the front part of the jack pad.
Not too surprisingly, what it took the weight of a 7,000 pound trailer to bend, I can’t unbend with a little hammer.
So now I felt twice as stupid as I had after the incident at the CAT scale, and I resolved not to drop the hitch without chocking first.
Flash forward to day 2 of our big long Ontario loop. We’d only spent one night in our first destination, near Niagara Falls Ontario. I like a short first day because it sort of gets you back in the camping mindset without stressing you out too much. Because we were just staying overnight, I left the trailer hitched up.
This morning after I thought we were ready to go, I took walk around the whole truck and trailer, mentally checking off everything on the checklist I’m working on in my mind. Everything looked perfect. Off we go, and I feel a tiny bit of a bump just as we’re starting off. It was a lot more gentle than last trip when I tried to set off with the chocks still in place, or 2 years ago when I almost set off with the stairs down. Thinking it was probably just something in the road, we continued on. It was a longish day by my standards, and we didn’t stop for much except some fuel and snacks. But on our way into the campground, I stopped at a water spigot to fill the fresh tank. As I’m standing there listening to the water flowing in, I noticed something was off. The hitch jack was pretty darn low. And I suddenly realized, with horror, that that little jump I’d felt when we were leaving was because I hadn’t retracted the hitch jack, and that was just what it feels like when you leave 3 of your wooden blocks behind. Fortunately we didn’t do any more damage to the hitch jack plate, and we were lucky there weren’t any speed bumps or sharp pitch changes on the any on ramps or something.
But that’s it, I can’t keep my checklist in my mind. I’ve got to make it extensive, and probably have it printed so both Vicki and I can do our own walk around and make sure nothing is missed.