Today was the day I was supposed to be in Cobleskill, NY, on my way to Cincinnati to visit with daughter Leslie and her family, prior to a visit to Ohio’s Cayuhoga National Park. The trailer was loaded, the truck full of things to bring to Leslie, the house was locked up and the only task remaining was to attach the trailer to the truck. After several attempts, I finally had the truck lined up perfectly, the hitch ball precisely under the trailer hitch; I pushed the “down” button on the hitch, the trailer dropped an inch….and stopped. I pushed it again. There was a tired groaning sound, the trailer dropped another inch, and that’s as far as it would go. Subsequent attempts yielded nothing.

I called the RV dealer, who reminded me that there was a manual crank on the top of the power hitch jack, and I could use it to crank the trailer down on to the truck by hand. So, I dug the crank out of the trailer’s rear storage area and, much to my chagrin, discovered that the mount for the bike rack was positioned perfectly over the crank access point, so with that bike mount on there, the crank could not be employed. The only way to get on the road, it seemed to me, was to remove the bike rack.

So, I took my bike off the rack arms, removed and stowed the arms, and then noticed three bolts holding the rack mount over the jack (or so I thought). Another five minutes to remove those bolts, I figured, and I would be on my way. So, I pulled my tool box out of the truck bed, found the correct wrench and socket, and quickly removed two of the bolts. But the third one simply would not budge.

I regret now that I did not think to take a picture of this before everything went to hell in a hand basket. But here is an old photo which shows the whole jack business correctly assembled and working. If you zoom into the photo you might be able to see the three bolts in question, on a triangular plate where the jack post (under the yellow trailer jack) attaches to the trailer tongue. Notice how the jack post continues through the trailer tongue and down to the ground, and how the bike rack mounting covers the top of the jack:

So at this point, despite a liberal application of WD-40, I could not remove that third bolt. Worse, my efforts were beginning to strip the top of the bolt. I knew that if I continued in this fashion, I would destroy the bolt and render its removal impossible. It was time to call an expert.

My neighbor across the street, Tony, is an auto mechanic, who has serviced our cars for decades. When he answered the phone, I explained my conundrum and offered to pay him to send a man over to remove this bolt. He very kindly informed me that, although his shop was not in fact open today, he would stop by in a few minutes to see what he could do.

When Tony arrived, he brought some sort of serious power wrench. After selecting the correct-sized socket, he put that wrench to that bolt and within five seconds the bolt came out and the trailer smashed to the ground! Turns out that those bolts weren’t securing the bike rack to the tongue, they were securing the trailer tongue to the jack! So now, here we were — the trailer lying on the ground at the base of the jack, the bike rack askew against the battery box and the red wire from the trailer battery to the jack neatly severed by the falling trailer.

I could only imagine what my dishes looked like inside the trailer after a sudden two-foot drop. At this point Tony suggests that, since we could now access the manual crank at the top of the jack, we could employ his power wrench to jack the trailer up enough to mount it on the truck. Another burst from the wrench and the relevant nut inside the jack spins right off and drops inside the jack, effectively lost. We now have no means to lift the trailer and no hope of replacing those three bolts.

So Tony decides to call another neighbor. Dave lives behind Tony and in the past has been super kind and helpful to me by employing his tractor to move snow from my mailbox. Tony drives away and, within minutes, returns with Dave, on his tractor. Together they figure out a way to use the tractor bucket to lift the trailer and block it up underneath:

Tony rummaged around in my garage and found the Lowe’s plastic buckets, along with a couple of blocks of wood, upon which to rest the trailer. What I did not photograph was the subsequent buckling and crushing of those buckets (they’re now 1/3 their original height) as the two-ton trailer, full of fresh water for the trip, flattened them into oblivion. But Dave re-positions the tractor, suitable jack stands are retrieved from Tony’s house, and the process is repeated — this time with success! You can see one of the wrecked buckets in the photo below, and the trailer now up on the jack stands:

At this point, with the trailer tongue off the ground, we could remove the bike rack mount and the jack, which lifted out of the trailer tongue when the round foot (seen above) was removed. Our next move was to attach the trailer to the truck. Although I have no pictures of this process, what happened was that Dave re-positioned the tractor to the far side so that I could back the truck under the hitch when he raised the trailer off the jack stands (visible in the photo above), using a chain which Tony had attached to the top of the tractor bucket and then around the trailer tongue. Once the trailer was lifted, I backed the truck into position, and Dave lowered the trailer hitch down onto the truck’s hitch ball. The trailer was now attached!

In the photo above, you can see the trailer, now sans jack and bike mount, attached to the truck. I was fortunate that the RV dealership was open today; Brendan at Call Of The Wild RV in Oxford, Maine was able to take the trailer into his repair shop this afternoon, where it will reside until a new (manual-crank!) jack can be obtained and installed.

So, my August plans are now essentially ruined. Brendan informs me that the earliest they can install a new jack is Friday, and Saturday is more likely. I already have reservations for a trip with Allison and Jax during the third week of August, which means either I cancel those and drive to Cincinnati next week for a two-week stay, or I completely skip driving to Ohio and seeing family this summer, since I have local obligations starting the last week of August, running through the middle of October. I am waiting to hear from each of the girls before making a decision. I suppose I could fly to Ohio this week, but at twice the expense of driving. So there appear to be no good options.

Although it’s turned out to have been a very bad summer for traveling, it’s worth plenty to know that I have neighbors I can count on when push comes to shove. There was absolutely no way that I could have ever solved this problem by myself; I have neither the tools nor the expertise. But both Tony and Dave dropped everything to share theirs with me, and all I had to do was ask. Neither Tony nor Dave would take any money for the hour they spent today, resurrecting my trailer; both simply said, “that’s what neighbors are for.” I only hope the day comes when I can return their kindness.