I went to Big Spring this weekend to pick up my Airstream trailer. From Friday to today, I drove a round trip of 947 miles, one-half of it pulling a 41-year-old trailer back to Houston. It was a quick trip; however, even a quick visit to West Texas is interesting. As I drove into Big Spring, I could see a large plume of black smoke rising from the north side of town.
That’s the best I could do with my iphone while driving. It turns out that the fire was a large grass and brush fire just off of I-20. Later, my aunt told my mother and me that a forestry service helicopter was dropping water, which it pumped from Beale’s Creek, on the fire. Now why the forestry service would have a helicopter in West Texas is a mystery to me, but we did see some helicopter, forestry service or not, doing just what my aunt said. A large yellow helicopter would swoop in from the west, drop down below the level of the creekside, fill its tank with water, and circle back to the fire.
Of course, a good fire is something to watch and all around the north side of town, groups of people gathered to watch smoke and a helicopter making three minute runs.
Getting out of town with the Airstream was less exciting but more complicated than putting out the fire. The trailer has been at my mom’s for the past three months. In order to pull the Airstream with my new earth killing car, I had to buy a weight-distributing hitch. It came in a box, some assembly required.
My mom asked my uncle James to help get the trailer set up on Saturday morning. My uncle James is one of the best people you could ever meet and would do anything asked, but I knew I was in for a little trouble because of that weight-distributing hitch. It’s not important as to what that type of hitch is, all you need to know is that it is more involved than just dropping the trailer on a ball and driving off. In addition to the ball, it has two arms that attach to the trailer by chains and as I mentioned, some assembly is required. I knew that James would be of the view that all I needed to do was to drop the trailer on a ball and drive off and I was right. The first thing he told me was “You don’t need all that. Just put the ball on the truck and go.”
Even if I was inclined to do that, and I wasn’t, another obstacle immediately presented itself. We couldn’t get the trailer on the hitch. James brought a ball for the hitch and we tried, and tried, and tried to get the trailer to latch onto the ball but had no luck. If you’ve never tried to get a trailer hitched up, it’s not a quick process. There’s much backing and pulling forward, by inches, by half-inches. Turn the wheel this way, no, turn it back, a little more, stop, come back, pull forward, stop, come back an inch, no too much, pull it forward, wait, back, back, back, (metal crunching sound), too far, pull forward, hold it, back to the right by 2 inches. Try hearing this in varied order for an hour or so. Add in my mother cautioning James not to get his fingers caught in the hitch and warning me not to run over James and its even more stressful. We managed to drop the trailer a couple of times, although no harm done. Here’s what I could see:
After a while, another uncle, Boosie, and my aunt Sonia, came over and we all continued to work on the problem. The debate finally was over whether we had the right size ball on the hitch. 2 5/16″ was the consensus as to the correct size (for some reason my trailer tongue did not have a size indicated on it). After more than an hour, we called the local camper and rv shop, Casey’s Camper, and they sent someone around to pick up the trailer and take it in.
Turns out that a 2 5/16″ ball will not fit onto a hitch made for a 2″ ball, no matter how much backing and maneuvering and Wesson oil is involved. Getting the Airstream hitched took the entire morning and several hundred dollars, but both were well spent.
I do need to say that I have the best family imaginable. I didn’t even need to ask, and there was nothing in it for them but a certain headache (and the possibility of a crushed finger); nevertheless, my mom, and various aunts and uncles (the youngest of whom is 66) spent their Saturday morning helping me with a pretty dirty and physical task.
