Since August we've gone from Louisiana to West Texas to California then Arizona and now New Mexico. Since we haven't been chasing streams and we've spent some time with family, we had the ability to get our trailer in the shop several times for some basic maintenance. Leaving Colorado we got stranded in New Mexico on the side of the interstate when one of our brakes failed and almost caught fire. Temps were in the 90s and we were on the side of the road for nearly 4 hours. Thankfully we have an onboard generator and I was able to fix lunch and somewhat keep the trailer cool with our AC. Another aspect I was thankful for was the fact I was following Tyler in his truck and noticed the smoke billowing out near our tires so we pulled over immediately. I doubt I would have been able to notice or even see the smoke if I was by myself. Then the wiring for our axel and brakes would have burnt up completely and things would have been much more costly. So we got the one brake replaced and made it safely to Louisiana where we took the time to get the rest of them replaced. We also upgraded our jacks because we may or may not have bent one or all of them during the summer trying to squeeze into some of our favorite spots.
Once we got to Lubbock, Tx I took the trailer in to get the tires replaced. If you remember this summer we had to replace one tire and rotated the others due to uneven wear on the tread. This was caused by the kitchen side of our trailer carrying more weight than the rest of the trailer. So we reorganized our pantry and moved some things around and haven't had that issue again. I think the problem is when we get ready to dry camp in the forest our freshwater tank is 80 gals plus we pack the trailer with enough food for 2 weeks. We tried to pack our trailer as evenly as possible. We do carry literally all our belongings, which still leaves us with plenty of space. We aren't packed to the brim with things, we do practice minimalism heavily so we were still not at our max weight. We didn't realize how heavy the fridge and stove were ontop of canned foods and such in the pantry. We moved our more heavier foods like canned foods to the middle of the trailer.
While in West Texas we realized our slide-out wasn't sealing properly we got that fixed in California. When we got the trailer back our fridge wasn't working on propane. I chalked it up to being out of propane and just hit the road. Then in Az the RV park had a loose ground and it shorted something out in our trailer and almost caught fire. Pictured above is the wiring we had to replace, the short caused every outlet in the trailer to shut off. Fortunately, I was able to find help and get everything operating and back to normal. It was scary because I had no idea of the melted wires and thought it was our GFCI outlet or a fuse. A risk I was unaware of...but now I know.
Adapting and staying calm is probably the strongest character traits we've had to work on as a family since moving into the trailer. Which are two traits I don't mind mastering, the trailer just makes us work on it harder than you'd think. I'm grateful to learn about these misfortunes and learning experiences. I'm even more grateful we've been working on our finances and was able to cover the costs stress-free because of our frugality. I promise you, a year and a half ago we would have been scrambling at every single trial we encountered because we wouldn't have been financially prepared for it. That is also ontop of a huge pay cut we took at the beginning of covid. God prepared us for something we didn't even know was coming. No one knew our world would change like it did last year.
