Getting Hammie To The Mechanic

Things did not go exactly as planned on the day we were scheduled to take the camper to the mechanic.  Kyle left work early to come and pick the camper up from storage and take it over to Parker Trailer.  His vehicle has the hitch on it and I am not quite comfortable towing a broken down camper.

We got to storage at about 3:30pm, picked up the camper and headed the 10 minutes down the road to Parker Trailer.  Just as we reached the corner where we would turn in to the business, a police car pulled in front of us and blocked off the road.  Surprised, we decided to turn the other direction, go around through a shopping center and cross over into the trailer lot that way.

The camper was bumping and clanking as we carefully picked our way through the shopping center lot.  Just as we reached the area to cross the road, another police car pulled up and blocked the road.  We could not get our camper to its appointment.  Frustrated, I hopped out of the truck and went to talk to the police officer.  Apparently the gas station on the corner had sustained a 50,000 gallon fuel spill that shut down all access points into the area.

It was all I could do not to cry.  I so badly wanted to drop this broken down, more trouble than it's worth, camper off at Parker Trailer and find out once and for all if it was even worth repairing.  And now we were stuck in a shopping center with a camper that was on a broken something.  After a bit of back and forth and calling and rescheduling our appointment for the morning we decided to take it back to storage.

Unfortunately, by this time there was only one way back, and it was across a median where traffic control officers had opened up a spot for stranded cars to jump the highway and go the opposite direction of the fuel spill.  There was no way we could do that with our broken down camper.  Our only option was to leave it parked in the shopping center parking lot.  We backed it into a secluded space and unhitched.

As we drove away, I told Kyle I hoped someone took it in the night and then we wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.  It seemed like more of a headache than it was worth.  He kept reminding me of what the people at Parker Trailer could do for us and what the payoff could be.  I only hoped he was right.