Interestingly enough, even though Knoxville TN is little more than 50 miles from Franklin NC, as the crow flies, locals very rarely cross the Smoky Mountains to visit, except on vacation. Its almost as though there was an ocean between, not a range of hills. Anyway, we were due to leave our friends in Raccoon Valley to see our friends in Franklin. Before leaving I had decided that one of the ti(y)res, which had been slowily losing air, needed to be changed. I am very grateful to our friends and their tools and equipment which made this possible. One of the problems of living in a trailer is that if you need to do something to it which requires moving it you have to wait until you are ready to move on. However, the punctured tyre has been replaced with the spare, so it is ready to be fixed.
We had a lovely drive through the mountains, nice weather, clear views.
We stopped for our packed lunch at a rest stop on I 40. Then had a fascinating experience. Sally wanted a coffee from the vending machine. Having only a $5 bill I put it in the machine. While it dispensed the coffee it also dispensed the change, all in quarters. Now instead of it delivering the expected 16 quarters, it kept going, eventually stopping when (I counted later) it had given out $9.75 in change. Here was a machine I liked!!!
Warily I put another $5 bill in and ordered myself a coffee. Low and behold, it discharged yet more quarters, finishing up with dimes, as I assume it had run out of quarters. This time it dispensed $7.65, as well as the coffee.
At this point I quit (no more $5 bills) and went my cheery way, just a little bit more cheery as a result of our lunch stop on I40. (oh, of course I would have reported it to the Information Office, but there was a stern disclaimer by the vending machines to say that they had nothing to do with the running of the machines - fair enough!).
We had a reasonable drive from there to Franklin, though worryingly the truck was dangerously close to overheating on a couple of the long climbs on R74, but cutting the A/C, putting on the heating and dropping the speed back as far as 25 m.p.h. held it well in the working temperature of the engine, though it does not bode well for trips to the Rockies next, or in subsequent years.
Having arrived at our good friends The Baird Family, late of Winter Haven FL, now proudly living in Franklin NC, we needed to park the Trailer. Easier said than done, as they have a lovely property which is down a narrow lane, with entrances front and back both with tricky bends in them. We tried to go past and reverse round into their front drive, but the turn was too sharp for our rig, which has a terrible turning circle forwards, and jacknifes very easily going backwards.
The only solution was to back up their road about 100 yards (as we could not turn round), turn at the end of the road and back down the road on to their drive. This was not an easy task as the road was narrow and curvy. The line had to be exactly right, or it would jack knife away, however thanks to excellent support from Sally and Christy we eventually managed it. It took us an hour and a half of work to get the trailer in place! The neighbours had free entertainment watching our shenanegins! The problem with reversing is that there is not pattern of using the steering wheel to get the unit to go in the right direction. It depends on the angle of the truck and trailer at the tow hitch as to whether the back end goes to the left or right when the steering wheel is turned. Over steering not only changes the angle, but also the line of travel, often making it impossible to continue in a straight line without drastic changes to the steering wheel, or moving forward to restore the original line of travel. In other words, it is still an art rather than a science to me.
Anyway, we are here now and safely set up.
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