Quote:
Originally Posted by Focuspuller
As I contemplate the full-time Airstream life, this is actually one of my fears: Traveling alone, pulling into a campground late, tired, and having to back into a tight spot by myself.
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I should give you the keys to a Freightliner with 38,000-lbs of steel -- an unstable load -- and like the rookie I was you could spend 45" or more blind-side backing up a curve, on the dirt and across the tracks. Alone, with a flashlight and lots of trees.
There is something we've forgotten that our rural ancestors took for granted: it takes what it takes, no more and no less. The only goal is to do it correctly, and time plays no part. A change in mental outlook -- impatience -- was called for.
A fulltimer is calling on a different reserve of maturity (if you will) as he moves about the country. Hurrying from one place to another just to wind up with the same beer in front of the same TV program isn't it . . . but taking the time to get in and out of the vehicle
and learn to admire the tiny differences of place is what worked for me to quell the anxiety. The impatience that, really, comes from without; a bad lesson we've had to internalize.
I've yet to met any truck driver, for what this is worth, who will not admit that there are days he can't back up worth a hoot. As a flatbed driver, then, I rarely did the kind of backing in a month that a dry box (van) driver did in a few days. Took me many tries sometimes.
My trip planning, therefore,
works from the premise that I will arrive and be unhitched before sunset; certainly before the end of dusk. This is the luxury a working man hasn't.
To that end I offer a favorite trip-planning tool:
Sunrise, sunset, dawn and dusk times around the World - Gaisma
If you wish to have something worth worrying over, then study a bit on how to properly alert others that you have had to make an emergency stop.This explanation is reasonably well-done:
http://www.khulsey.com/rv_info/revie...triangles.html
Were I alone and backing uncomfortably and at night, it might be that I could place one or even more of these to solve the problem with a portable battery spotlight. I learned this because I had to. The traveller has the luxury of time, daily. Enjoy the difference of needing versus wanting, it is what makes full-time travel a pleasure.
A great trailer, with well-sorted rigging, being towed by a reliable and comfortable tow vehicle suited to the job, well . . .
if it's aluminum, I'm not surprised to see it. I am naturally hesitant in believing that a wide wooden box is ever quite road worthy.
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