June 23rd through July 6th, 2024
We always hope we'll have an unadventurous journey between stops. Sometimes, it doesn't go that way and your coach blows over on its side. Other times, it's a comedy of errors that really isn't all that funny. This was one of those times.
We detach the trailer from the motor home, even if it's right behind the motor home the whole time. It helps with leveling, and it makes the most sense. In Savannah, we had a pull-in site so we could face the lake there, so when we left we hooked up the trailer, backed out, and then headed on our way. The highway was only a couple miles from our site, but when we got up to about 45mph things started going wrong.
We felt it right before we saw it out the side-view mirrors -- the trailer was fishtailing back and forth behind us. Margot pulled over, nice and easy, and we were off the highway in a nice line. We got out to see what was wrong.
The trailer was only attached to the coach by its safety chains! It was even plugged in, still, and the emergency brake line was still plugged in. The car was in the trailer, and it was nice to see the weight was distributed well as it sat there. The hitch receiver was empty, and so was the coupler on the trailer. The trailer was pushed into broken fiberglass, and the tongue jack was a bit messed up.
Margot thought she saw a black, plastic bag float across the highway behind us right before the fishtailing started, and she knew that was actually our huge, heavy hitch. She started walking back along the highway to find it, while Monica got the trailer up on its jack, disconnected it from the coach, and moved the coach out of the way. It looked like the damage was cosmetic, and it wasn't pretty.
Margot dodged traffic to get the hitch off of the highway (hopefully no one hit it or it could really do some damage) and brought it back. There are two hitch pins in it, usually, and both of them were missing. We put in some spare pins, and then realized that the trailer coupler was a bit worse for wear. Margot used a pry bar to get the hitch attached again.
There was more cosmetic damage on the trailer -- it looks like it hit the hitch on the way out. But the tires were fine, and it was moving without any issues. So, we got moving again.
We were moving along, and Monica said she didn't check to make sure all of the basement doors were closed before we left. Margot looked out and saw something that looked like a door just flapping in the highway wind. So, we pulled over again! It was a piece of trim, the same piece that flapped on our last Newmar motor home. A zip tie later and we were rolling again.
Then, it started raining. And the wipers didn't work, along with every other button on the steering wheel. We pulled over a third time but couldn't find a loose wire or plug anywhere. We waited out the rain or drove slowly during drizzles, and finally made it to Charleston. A two-hour trip was about double that by the time we were done.
And the park was lovely! It felt a little like a state park, but nicer. There was a lot to do.
Margot found a lot of kayaking, though the tide went out on her once and she got very stuck in the mud. They also had a dog park, and Lacey grew up a little. Normally, she's not a fan of getting wet, especially her face. But this time, she ran hard at the lake and flew through the air to jump in over and over! She even dove in, getting her face wet. Who is this dog?!
Charleston was really nice, too, and we went into the city a few times. Naturally, we had to go to Fort Sumter. It was a really nice boat ride through the harbor all the way out to the island where the fort was. It was very cool to walk around in it and learn about where the war started. It was the perfect time, just getting away from it all with a few people.
Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie are so tied together by history that they share the same national park. But we had to drive a distance to get to the other fort from where the boat dropped us off again. When we got there, it was awesome to discover they were celebrating Carolina Day that weekend. That meant the fort had lots of activities and reenactments happening. We watched some soldiers fire their guns outside, and then went to view the fort. It was so hot, but they had a basement that was overly air conditioned. Naturally, we stayed there for longer than necessary just to cool down.
On the way back home, we stopped at the Charles Pinckney National Historic Site to learn about one of our founding fathers neither of us had ever heard of. The consensus was the guy was kind of a jerk, but he was influential back in the day. The park was small, and it was too hot to hike around the property, so we didn't stay long.
We did get to see part of a Gullah Geechee bible in their language, and that was a real highlight. Their story is very interesting. There isn't a single place to learn about them, so we picked up information here and there in our travels.
We enjoyed South Carolina every minute we were there (our trailer incident was in Georgia!). We hope to be back again someday, especially to Charleston. We paid a visit to the MarineMax location there on our last day to talk about potential, future boats (perhaps an Aquila?). We're always dreaming.
