There was heavy rain predicted for last Thursday and Friday, so we did most of our preparations for moving down the road to the Moose Lodge on Wednesday night....disconnected the water hookup, brought the two big slides in so the toppers wouldn't have water on them and bring that moisture inside, took the large ham radio antenna down and retracted the two awnings. The weatherman's forecast was accurate - heavy rain began about 5:30 A.M. on Thursday, and continued most of the day. We were hoping for a little lull in the activity, but ended up moving as the rain continued to fall.
The Moose Lodge camping is on a fairly flat grassy area, and we saw standing water, but the ground seemed firm so we weren't too concerned about parking in it. After we settled into our spot, we noticed that there was a dryer looking area just down the row, so we decided to move to another spot. That was when we found out that the ground at the rear of our space was not so firm - Little House's rear wheels had sunk about 8 inches into the ground and we were not going anywhere. No sense in sitting there spinning our wheels, and fortunately we were sitting perfectly level so we settled in and hoped that by the time we needed to return to the casino on Saturday the ground would have drained enough for us to move.
The Moose Lodge women host a fish fry every Friday evening. The menu
includes your choice of whitefish, perch, shrimp or chicken, or a combo
of two, with side dishes, a great salad bar and homemade desserts. Our
friends, Dave and Charlotte joined us in supporting the ladies' efforts
as we enjoyed a delicious dinner. After dinner they visited with us and discussed our plans for extracting our Little House from the mud.
Saturday morning, the sun was out and there a nice breeze, but unfortunately the ground was still moist enough that the big dual wheels couldn't get enough traction to move our 38,000 pounds out of the muddy ruts. We have roadside assistance that provides wrecker service, but we wanted to avoid that if at all possible. Hank spent about an hour trying to raise the coach with the jacks so that he could get wood under the wheels, at least far enough to give us some traction, but the ground was still soft enough that it just pushed any wood into the muck.. A hardware store visit was necessary to get a small shovel and kitty litter. After another hour Hank had dug enough ground up in the front and back of both the left and right pairs of dual wheels to convert the hole into a short trench about 4 ft. long, and then spread kitty litter in front of and in back of the wheels. He was then able to rock forward and backward to get just enough of a running start so that momentum would carry Little House over the hump and out of the muck, and without hesitating, he drove the 50 feet or so to solid ground - Little House was free!
Lesson learned! You can bet we won't be parking on soil with standing water in the future if we can possibly help it - even if it is supposed to be firm and draining well!
After all of the unwanted excitement we had on Saturday morning, it was nice to return to the quiet RV parking area at the casino, empty our waste tanks at the dump station, and settle in for another week's stay....on very solid ground.
No comments:
Post a Comment