Washington, state 30 and over 800 miles: a trailer incident that could have been worse - human error





Today I had one of those heart stopping moments where I heard a kaboom when I was pulling out of the campground. I stopped immediately only to see the hitch and front end of the camper on the ground. Scott had already biked out. I called him, and he biked back. 

Thankfully, the hitch had not broken but had come out of the receiver. It was human error – guessing the pin was ahead of the sleeves ie the pins didn’t properly go through the sleeve to secure it.  Lesson learned: even when you have hooked up hundreds of times, you can make a mistake. Stay present in the moment! 

With the amazing help of the Jim and Mike of Riverbend Campground in Washington, and a fellow camper,  we propped up the camper with a jack, took apart the hitch, put the hitch back together, and we were able to reconnect all and hook up.  (It sounds simple, but it was not simple.) 

I trailered on to the next site with no further issues. We will be inspecting all tonight to ensure that nothing is faulty, but we think it was a human error moment and we escaped a catastrophe! So grateful for the amazing help of so many to get us back on the road again. 

Scott had a peaceful – albeit longer ride – the rest of this very pretty day. PHEW it could have been worse. Much worse.  The scenery of the multiple bays and snow covered mountains is gorgeous.

Meanwhile we only have a couple more days going north before we turn East. We are still working on the route east through the Cascades due to some closure issues due to snow.   The road is typically open mid-April – but is still showing as closed. We shall see. More adventures to come it seems. 

We met some very nice people in the campground, including a nice gentleman who has gone through prostate cancer surgery (robotic radical prostatectomy) and donated on the spot to zero prostate cancer!  The blessings continue to outweigh the challenges, so we will choose to focus on that! 

Milesformoney.org – keep those donations coming! Thank you!  






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