Your worst RV travel predicament?

[justRich]

What was your most difficult RV predicament - parking, travel, routes, etc.

Ours was driving up a pothole filled dirt road in freezing weather in a pitch black night.  Towing a Jeep only to find the road ended in a dead end.
(Thanks to a misinformed relative giving directions.)
No turn-around and toad-disconnect required.  Done it but it was not the adventure we'd hoped.

 

[Mr. Camper]

We were driving across the Everglades on Alligator Alley towards the East Coast when we had to turn around due to a jack-knifed truck ahead.  We had a 1996 truck and were towing a 31 foot TT.  Did I mention it was at night and also in the middle of a heavy rainstorm?  With ditches on both sides of the highway, there wasn't a lot of room.  The cop directing traffic had to stay out of his vehicle and had little sympathy for the three RV's blocking the area.  The two 5er's had to go before it was our turn.  It was a long time for them and even longer for us to make the turn and get back to Naples for the night.  Driving back to Naples for the night we passed a very long RV caravan heading east.  They should have made it by now.  As we pulled into a KOA for the night, the rain stopped.  The road was still closed the next day so we changed plans went up and over to Lake Okeechobee.

[bobsallyh]

Early 80's going thru Columbus, Ohio, on I-70 westbound, which we had done many times before. Somehow, someway, I ended up in the lane to go north on I-75. Went north an exit or two, jumped off I-75, went west off the exit to find a place to go back south. Saw a surface "street", took that which in reality was an alley which dead ended. So my wife watches backing and maneuvering around, got squared away and we just knew thousands of eyes were watching us from the tall business buildings.

[Pat & Pete]

Just getting the Monaco ready for full time , we needed it out of winter storage . It spent the winter on the side yard of DWs brother . 

Thinking the ground was still firm , I warmed the motor and started to pull away . As soon as the wheels left their winter perch , the rig sank to the axles . 

The tow truck had to stay on the hard pack drive , about 50 feet away , so it didn't get pulled in . The ruts are still visible after close to 9 years . Brother simply eliminated that part of the yard from his mowing , which was next to a tall grass field . 

I left a heavy trail of mud on the road for about a quarter mile . Stopped at a quarter wash and 'kind of' left a mess . Musta been half an acre of brothers land in that wash bay . 

Compared to that^ , even our worst experience on the road has been a cake walk .

[hemsteadc]

Going up west side of Great Salt Lake.  Decided to turn around on a wide shoulder.  Pulled off to shoulder.. oops.  Ground looked ok but was nothing but mud. Truck sank to axles and 5er darn near toppled over. Some nice Mexican chaps happened along and were able to pull me out. 
 

 

[sandsys]

https://sandcastle.sandsys.org/2011/01/sand-trap/

Linda

[Kirk W]

Not long after we moved to TX we made reservations at Turner Falls Park in Oklahoma for the weekend including July 4, back in 1992. We had never been there but it seemed to be a good place for us to go from Ft. Worth, TX to meet my sister from Wichita, KS.  What a mistake that was! We arrived at about 6 pm and discovered that they do not reserve any specific sites nor do that keep track of what sites are taken, or even prevent someone who hasn't paid for an RV site from taking on. Luckily for us, my sister had arrived earlier and parked her car in a site or we would probably not have had one. On entering the park the attendant just gave us verbal directions to the two areas with RV sites. Driving into the first area I discovered that the sites were all taken and the street was a dead-end with no way to turn around except using a campsite. I had to back nearly 1/4 mile in the dark to get out. We did locate my sister later and the site she parked in. The signs said "no fireworks" but the rural fire department was there to put our fires 2 times over the 3 nights that we were there. 

[2gypsies]

We arrived on our first day of ranch sitting on 10,000 acres of gorgeous Oregon property.  Plan was for us to park at the entrance gate to let the cowboys in to do their thing. We pulled in and the owner directed us to our spot where a previous mobile home used to sit.  We backed in and immediately fell into the septic tank with our 40' MH.  We just broke through the top; sank about a foot in the rear and were situated very sideways for two days while the cowboys built a road under us so we could drive out.  Amazingly, no damage done.  The owner had forgotten where the septic was when he directed us in.

[k4rs]

We had stopped for the night in a very remote mountainous area.  As part of my evening routine I did a walk-around of the fifth wheel checking for any problems.  Boy did I ever find one!  I discovered that the rear axle had three broken shackle links.  The fourth was hanging on by a thread.  

I secured things as best I could using what I had on hand.  The next day we had a very long, white knuckle trip down the mountain and about 300 miles to the closest place where I could get repair parts.  Everything worked out OK, but that sure was a tense day.

Safe Travels...

[Dp26]

Velvac mirror explosion. Drivers side. 2k miles from home, nowhere near any sort of hardware store. Drill and bolt robbed from elsewhere got it workable to get home 

[jhocher99]

1 Week ago, Camped in the Mountains, Temperature dropped to 28 Degrees. Water Froze and Heater Quit. Luckily I was 20 miles From Home, so I Drove Home and got an Electric Heater and who needs Water.

[Carlos]

We were towing a Wellcraft 2800 cabin cruiser (boat) across the country.  Sometimes using it as an RV.  It's around 12k pounds, and 35-some feet long, 10 feet wide (yes, over normal limits).  We decided to grab a hotel, and found a good cheap option on an app, with great reviews.  (Cabin boats are RVs, but have a couple of limitations when out of the water, so not ideal.) . Well we arrive to find a huge switchback hill to get there.  Hmm, well the truck had never let me down before.  I start to turn into the first one, and lose all rear traction, sliding back into a jackknife.  Uh-oh.  It had been raining for days, and the weather was cold enough to create some ice crystals that were like roller bearings.  I can try forward again with more careful momentum, or make the risky attempt to straighten out in reverse, with some of the rig hanging off a hill.  Forward has great reward as well as the risk of simply continuing to slide off the hill.  I decided to let the hill win, and very slowly back up at full wheel lock, hoping it would straighten without sliding.  It worked, after quite some time, and my lower regions may have damaged my seat from the pucker.  Here's the view from our first-floor hotel room, where I left it next door.

 

[rvrev2]

Traveled from northeast Nebraska to Pheonix to visit family for Christmas.  After Christmas, started back taking the southern route to avoid as much winter weather as possible.  Made it all the way back to Nebraska with no problems.  Then it happened.  Just 1 hour from home, we transitioned from one county to the next on 2 lane highway and hit black ice!  The other counties had salted their highways.  This county did not.  We ended up jackknifing and landed in the ditch facing the opposite direction.  Fiver kissed the cab, blowing out the rear window.  That turned out the be the only damage.  It took local law enforcement to block the road and two tow trucks to winch us out as the snow was very deep and like concrete.  It was a very cold ride the rest of the way home.

When we got home, I entered the fifth wheel.  The refrigerator doors had flung open during the accident, released the entire contents of the fridge onto the floor, and then the doors had closed themselves up.  All the eggs ended up on the floor basically turning into egg-sicles because it was so cold.

 

[Carlos]

Scary!

 

[sandsys]

22 hours ago, rvrev2 said:

All the eggs ended up on the floor basically turning into egg-sicles because it was so cold.

At least egg-sicles are easier to clean up.

Linda

[The Quiet Assassin]

I was up a narrow mountain road in central France at one of my favourite hang gliding sites in my small diesel RV. I had the 3 am ferry booked and was due at work the next day.

I loaded the hang glider up and got ready to start the drive back to the UK only to have the clutch pedal go loosely right to the floor. 10 minutes investigation showed that some thing had broken inside the bell housing and it was not immediately repairable. 

So I warmed up the engine, put it in first and with a little help from my friends got it moving and hit the strater and off we went. 300 miles later I drove on to the ferry with 200 miles to go in the UK. 

By the time I turned into college I was doing perfect clutchless gear changes and had developed an eagle eye for spotting parking places with a down hill exit.

[I'mdonewiththis forum]

Wife and I were just outside Hot Springs, Ar. Our trailer was in a campground and we went to a store and were on our way back. We headed up a hill on a somewhat narrow two lane road with about 2' paved shoulders and a ditch beyond that. Got just about to the top of the hill (curve ahead too) and broke down. No forward or reverse plus couldn't start the engine due to the center of the flex plate breaking. I got stopped in a driveway to a trailer park. Started making phone calls and decided I should roll back some so that I wasn't blocking the driveway. I was out setting up triangles and left my phone in the truck. The wrecker driver called and my wife answered and was going to bring my phone out to me. She didn't realize the ditch was there since it wasn't when I stopped. She took a tumble and fell on her right wrist. I called an ambulance for her because I had no way to get her to any medical facility. At one time I had an off duty 911 dispatcher (stopped to help), two local cops, an ambulance, a wrecker, a Sheriff's Deputy and a Highway patrol officer on scene all while the traffic was fairly heavy. My wife was eastbound in the ambulance while I was westbound in the wrecker. The dispatcher followed us to the campground and helped unload and get groceries put away including the ice cream that was quite melted, then gave me a ride to the hospital where my wife was. I had to call her to get a ride for us back to the trailer and rented a car the next day. My wife broke the distal end of the right radius and wound up having surgery to get the bones back where they belonged plus a plate and screws. It turned into a rather expensive break down......

[Bill w/bus]

Turned off the Cassair Hwy for Stewart/ Hyder, AK. About 8 miles on the uphill and curing to the right when the transmission failed. On the uphill, around a blind curve on a two lane road. Got the toad disconnected and coasted downhill to a flat straight section. No cell phone connection. nearest phone, a radio phone connection at the local corner store, Mezadin Junction. With help from the EMS supervisor and the maintenance division chief we got towed off the road. Next morning the tow truck found us at the salt shed. Loaded onto the trailer for a 300 mile trip to Houston, BC. A few days over four weeks later we rolled out of Houston under our own power. We were very fortunate that the tow driver knew where we had to be fixed. 

The owner met us that Saturday afternoon and introduced us to "our mechanic' of the 28 on staff.  He was correct. Kim was an old school mechanic. And that was our 50th wedding anniversary story. 

 

Bill

[Ray,IN]

2014 we joined a SMART caravan to Alaska, enroute to meet the group a spring shackle broke. Luckily we were close to a HDT repair shop. I slowly drove into their parking lot. Repairs made, we continued our journey. Everything was great until we left Tok for Chicken AK. About 40 miles from Tok the "U" bolts on one axle end came loose, allowing the axle to slip back on the spring to the shackle. When I saw smoke in my mirror I stopped and looked for the cause, which was very apparent.

I was about 300' from a wide stoned driveway so I slowly pulled into it, as I did that axle-end fell off. I got the truck and 5er off the road, but the 5er was sitting an an odd angle after I unhooked. With no way to level, we locked it up and drove back to Tok. The local mechanic garage happened to be a Good Sam ERS provider. He followed us to the 5er, made a list of needed parts and equipment to do repairs there.

He returned to his garage for the night and to order parts from Seattle. We spent the night 40 miles from the nearest humanity in bear and moose habitat. Turned out that wide driveway was the entrance to an old landfill. Next morning there were moose and bear tracks in the mud beside the driveway.

3 days(had to wait on parts from Seattle), and $2,500 later we continued to Dawson by ourselves, as I had told the wagonmaster to continue without us. We rejoined the caravan in Dawson the evening before the scheduled departure.

The upside, we got some amazing pictures and met really nice people when we overnighted at Chicken Gold Camp. They were from Germany and had never seen a 5th wheel trailer up close. The men were fascinated at the 5th wheel hitch, the women were fascinated with the interior of the trailer.