Pictures for Pam, Day 118: HFF: Cattle & Gate

(+2 insets!)

Guess what we have sitting in front of our shop?! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! WE HAVE OUR VERY OWN RV!!! Oh what an exciting day!!

Steve and I met one of the owners in town late this morning to transfer money and ownership. Then we drove over to their place and painstakingly hooked our trailer to our truck. Steve showed me everything he did just so I know and finally we were ready to pull out.

I was assigned the duty of making sure there were no cars coming and then I waited and watched. The previous owners live at the end of an extremely narrow road with a fairly tight turn. Normally this would be a non-issue but we have a long-bed truck with a full-sized cab--about 25 feet. The trailer is 30 feet long. To make it around the curve in their road, Steve had to creep forward, check the angle and back way up to get closer to being able to get around that turn. It took him about 10 minutes of back-and-forth before he was finally able to clear the turn without wiping out the entire side of our RV! Steve drove up the hill and all was clear...until just as Steve was pulling out into the road, a car came buzzing around the turn. And then two more. What are the odds? No cars for 10 minutes and then three in a row! Sheesh. Thankfully there were no problems...the cars waited and Steve was able to get onto the main road. I hopped in and off we went! We drove at a leisurely pace for the 30-minute trip home and when we got to our gate, Steve stopped a good distance away so I could open the gates all the way and he'd be able to make the wide swing onto our property.

Maneuvering the trailer into position in front of our shop was quite a time-consuming and stressful challenge. The biggest problem was that our property is extremely muddy and the soil is very soft. This meant that the tires on both the truck and trailer sunk many inches in various places as Steve was angling the trailer but thankfully nothing got stuck. The truck's wheels occasionally spun in place, refusing to back the trailer up, so Steve would have to pull forward and try again at a different spot. Steve's handled long trailers and big rigs in the past but it's been a while. He also needed to retrain himself on the unique and confusing situation of backing a trailer up and turning it 45 degrees. I did my best to help direct him and as time goes on we'll perfect our directing—and we'll find our walkie-talkies too!

Our 2016 Grey Wolf trailer is now leveled and hooked up to power! It's totally and utterly amazing to us that we actually own an RV! It's going to take time for us to get used to this huge change, but we are good with it! I didn't take pictures inside yet but I do have one inset of the truck and trailer as Steve finally had it backed into position. I'll post more pictures tomorrow so you can have a look inside!

It is Thursday and so I'm posting my Happy Fence Friday picture...it's another one from our wonderful motorcycle trip we took a few years back with our buddy Andy. This picture was taken on a stretch of road between Alturas, California and Klamath, Oregon. There is are endless expanses of beautiful country along the way and I had a wonderful time clicking away from the back of the motorcycle! (By the way, I also included a panorama of today's lovely sky to celebrate RV DAY!)

Pam, since my main picture features cattle, I took a peek on your stream for "cow" or "cattle". Instead of finding a bovine, I found FLICKA! I really love this picture of him sitting in the snow. Here's hoping you had a good day! *HUGGGGGSSSSSS*!!! What a doll.

Explored on 3/08/19, highest placement, #8.