Well guys, I felt like chatting. So here you go....!!!
I hope you all had an excellent fourth. I certainly did -- my small crew (small is a pack of about 20 people and two boats) headed over camping on the Columbia River over in Eastern Washington. Was absolutely awesome, with absolute glass. On the way back, we had a bit of a trailer problem. Not my trailer though, fortunately.
So it was 90 degrees, I was driving along at about 70 mph with my cousin's 3/4 ton Chevy and Centurion Avalanche in front of me. The 4runner and Epic were truckin' along -- turning heads and keepin' up like a champ (it looks really funny to see this short 4runner pulling a LOOONG Epic. Friends passing kept pointing that out. I just grin...so proud of my Toys).
Anyway, so we're just truckin' along when all of a sudden, a black cloud shoots out from the right side of the Centurion trailer. My cousin pulls over immediately -- fortunately there was a shoulder right there. I followed behind, not knowing what to expect, but knowing it was bad. I pulled up behind and the wheel well from the trailer is completely buckled, and there are no tires on either of the two wheels (dual axle trailer). After a lot of hammering and pulling on the wheel well, we were able to get it open enough to put tires back on. He had one spare, I had another. Fortunately I was behind him and not the other way around or he would have been screwed. Anyway, we got the thing up and going again, and started checking tire pressure. His tires (the two that were left, anyway) were both at 35 pounds.
Oops. Just a reminder to all, especially in warm weather, check your tire pressure before trailering. Tire pressure on boat trailers, since they are always under load, should be at the max -- usually 50 psi. If they aren't, they get very hot and can blow out like my cousin's did.
Also, if you have the means, pick up a second trailer tire and mount. I'm going to buy one after I get my new board racks (priorities...I can't function with only one rack, since my other broke).
Imagine getting stuck out in the middle of nowhere with only one trailer tire and nothing to do about it -- except waiting maybe a couple hours for AAA (imagine trying that on the 4th of July weekend).
Anyways, hope your weekends were safe. Fortunately, everything with this situation went about as well as it could have, given the circumstances. Nobody got hurt, no toys were damaged. Well, except for the pretty red trailer. But that's fixable. And it only took about an hour or two of our time.
From now on, I'm always checking tire pressure and carrying a second spare -- $150 is all it costs for the second set-up. Imagine the crap you'd be in if you didn't have the second.
Oh, by the way, work is moving me to Yakima (small town in Eastern Washington, known for hops farms and wineries and gang violence) in October. So when y'all come to visit, that's where I'll be! It's about 2 hours from Seattle. I'm pretty excited, actually...
