And Then The Wheels Came Off

After staying in Capay for 9 months, it was time to move on to Hillman, Michigan, back to the Thunder Bay Golf & RV resort to work and golf for the next 5 months. Of course getting there was going to take some doing, pulling a trailer 2500 miles across the country is no small feat. We are never in a hurry when we get back on the road. A travel day for us is usually somewhere around 300 miles, give or take, and we like to be off the road no later than 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. We left Capay on May 15th, giving ourselves 10 days to get to Hillman. This included time in Kansas for routine maintenance on our 5th wheel at the Nu-Wa factory, and a two day stop in Grand Junction, Colorado to visit with friends.

 

Everything was going along as planned, and on May 24th we were driving through Indianapolis, Indiana, planning on one more stopover before arriving on Hillman the next day. And that's when the wheels came off…literally…well, just one wheel, but a very important one! Driving down the freeway on the outskirts of Indianapolis at 65 mph, we lost one entire tire with wheel, and irreparably damaged the brake drum and axle from our 5th wheel trailer. The strangest thing was, we didn't initially realize it, as nothing changed in how the truck and trailer were moving along. A motorist who witnessed the tire come off was able to flag us over to the side of the road and tell us what happened, and thank goodness for that, thank goodness for him. The tire bounced across four lanes of traffic, jumped the median wall, and bounced across four more lanes of oncoming traffic before disappearing altogether. It was some kind of miracle that no one was impacted by this runaway tire, including us.

 

We ended up sitting on the side of the freeway for 6 hours waiting for roadside assistance. This was a Thursday, the eve of the Memorial Day weekend, definitely not a good time to break down anywhere, but especially not in Indianapolis as the entire town gears up for the Indy 500 race. But eventually help did arrive, and we were escorted off the freeway into a Sears parking lot in a shopping mall. The repairs were extensive, and could not be completed that day. We ended up staying the night in the parking lot, with permission granted by mall security, and the next day we were back up and running by mid-afternoon. We drove out of the parking lot and just down the road to a nearby RV Park that amazingly wasn't already full, stayed one night, and arrived in Hillman the next day.

 

When I think about how much worse this could have been, how somehow we, and nobody else, was hurt, how no structural damage to our or anyone else's vehicles occurred, I am just totally amazed and grateful. Speaking of grateful, there were so many people who helped us over the course of those two days that I really cannot thank enough. First of all, the motorist who made sure we got safely off the road; the Department of Transportation workers who kept checking on us while we waited for road service to arrive (and, who actually took two trips up and down the highway looking for our tire); the roadside service crew who helped us off the road and eventually made the repairs (although they were well compensated…); and the mall security for allowing us to stay overnight in their parking lot and offered to help us with food and water had we needed it (one good thing about breaking down with your home attached, you pretty much have everything you need). Like I said, things could have been worse, and if money is all we are out when all this was said and done, that is a small price to pay.

 

Below are some pictures of the trailer before and during the repair.