The trip south to pick up the teardrop was a crazy blur of a couple of days.
I started heading south at 6:00 a.m. and met my good friend and wingman, Jim Tingey near Highland Park, IL. As we made our way south, the weather slowly degraded. Just outside of Chicago, the snow started. It got progressively worse as we got closer to Indianapolis.
At one point, we saw a State Trooper turned the opposite direction to oncoming traffic with his lights flashing.
Moments later, we came over a hill and saw traffic stopped for as far as we could see. We wisely pulled off and found a back route around Indianapolis. We joined back up with Interstate 65 on the south side of Indianapolis and continued on our way. We later found out that the whole interstate had been shut down on that small stretch due to a very bad crash. We had successfully dodged a bullet! The weather continued to get worse; at one point it was snowing so hard I could barely see the yellow line.
We traversed the entire state of Indiana, a small section of Kentucky and finally Tennessee. I made a questionable call and took a 'back' route to Cookeville rather than taking the interstate. We got to see some picturesque parts of Tennessee and arrived at Hans' at around 6:00 p.m.
After catching up with the Beans, we headed over to the garage and got our first official look at the teardrop.
Some things were pleasant surprises while others were more sobering.
The teardrop was smaller than I had imagined. The skin of the trailer was in pretty good condition. The tires were going to be a big problem. They 'rubbed' on the aluminum skin when the trailer was moved. We tested lots of theories: the axle must be too big; the tires are too big for the frame and others. We wouldn't know for sure until we took it to a tire place and they examined it. The three of us enjoyed some Wild Turkey and had a terrific conversation about all manner of things. We all turned in about 11:00 with plans to get started early in the morning.
The first thing we did was pull the trailer over to Wal Mart.
We needed to pick up some items. We purchased a safety chain and connectors, a temporary light kit, some cleaning pads, duck tape, and WD40. While we were there, we took a look at the trailer tires. They would be perfect; if they fit. They were about 1/3 narrower than the automotive tires that were installed on the trailer. With excitement, we purchased three of them (one for a spare) and asked the installers to put them on the trailer. This would have been awesome because we would be almost ready to leave. Turns out the bolt pattern didn't match.
We were going to have to try a tire specialist.
On to our second stop. They thought that they could sell us a narrower
profile tire that would fit the rim that was on the trailer. They
installed them and then it was pretty obvious, they were too thick.
They rubbed on the aluminum skin.
The installer was awesome. He tried all sorts of things to see if we
could 'make' them work. There was a lot of pounding with a sledge
hammer and hammering. In the end, we realized that this was not going
to work.
So, I had an idea. The 'spindle' or the 'hub' seemed to be the
problem. The hub we had on the axle was an automotive hub, not a
trailer hub. For this reason we would not find a tire that would fit
the bolt pattern that would be the width we needed. My idea was to
remove the hub and replace it with a 'trailer' hub.
They directed us to a trailer specialty store. We headed to New Era
Trailer about 15 minutes away. They were just the ticket. They had the
wheels, the hubs and even the lighting package we needed. We purchased
all of it and took it back to the tire specialists. Their installer
was tremendous. He had the new hubs and tires installed in less than
ten minutes. We were nearly road ready.
We pulled the trailer back to Hans' house and started working on the
lights. The snow had decided to come back and our hands were cold and
we were slowly getting soaked by the snow/slush/rain that was falling
pretty heavily.
Finally, we had the lights installed. We were ready to hit the road.
We said our goodbyes, checked on directions and hit it!
Notice the snow!
We made it about two miles when I noticed the hatch. It was acting like an air foil. It was lifting up as we hit about 50 miles per hour.
We stopped. Pulled out a bungee cord, that thankfully was left inside the cabin, and strapped the hatch down. We knew it was missing the hatch handle and striker, I don't know why we didn't anticipate the problem.
We were on our way, again. We made it less than a mile when we realized that it was still lifting up. We stopped in the snow/sleet/rain and decided we needed to purchase some straps to hold the hatch down. Jim and I went to an Auto Zone and bought some straps. We asked for a cardboard box or two to use to keep our bodies somewhat dry as we crawled under the trailer to attach the straps. After twenty minutes or so of fumbling with the straps, we figured out a system that seemed to work pretty well. We started off again, it was about three o'clock in the afternoon. The snow and rain was still coming down. Jim followed behind me and gave me regular updates on how things were looking from behind. We parted ways in Nashville and I was on my way north, without my wingman.
The snow did not let up until I reached Illinois. I stopped once just north of Indianapolis. I always love seeing the windmills in the giant wind farm there. The night was clear and I could see hundreds of little red blinking lights that are found on the top of the windmill. After a restroom break and another large soda, I was ready to make it the rest of the way home.
Unfortunately I did not get to stop in Ohio to meet my friend Larry. Things just did not work out for that visit, but I'm planning to meet with him this summer at some point.
I pulled into our driveway at about 1:15 in the morning.
In the past 48 hours, I had spent 22 of them on the road. I took a shower and crashed.
