It is 12:35 a.m. and we are sound
asleep. It’s a very cold night in
Georgia. The low is 28 degrees. Suddenly, we are jolted awake by a very
familiar sound. How can this be
possible? But, it is true – all four of
our hydraulic leveling jacks on the 5th wheel are spontaneously
retracting! The rig begins to slowly and
gently descend, and we feel like we are aboard the sinking Titanic. Please
tell me I’m dreaming!
G jumps out of bed and turns on the
bedroom light. I dive for a drawer at
the end of the bed, grab a pair of warm socks and hurriedly pull them on. G is in the kitchen throwing on his
coat. He shoves his bare feet into a
pair of Crocs and is out the door with a flashlight in seconds. The rig continues to softly drift downward
like a feather on the breeze. I am out
the door behind G. He disappears around
the corner of the rig heading directly to the panel which controls the Bigfoot automatic hydraulic leveling system. Absently, I notice that although G has donned
a warm coat and flimsy shoes, his britches are conspicuously missing. His coat reaches mid thigh. He is buck naked from the hem of his coat on down
frantically running around with his naked arse glowing in the moonlight.
Together we access the panel and
try in vain to shut down the Bigfoot system by the touch pad panel. The panel does not respond. It is not even lit up as in ON but is running anyway. And, it will not turn on for us to gain
control as we press the system turn on button.
The automatic leveling system is obviously malfunctioning. It has activated itself, and we have no
control over it.
The panel is very similar to the
control buttons on a microwave. The USA
made automatic leveling system has worked great up until now. It normally takes mere minutes with a simple
push of buttons to level the rig while settling into a camp site and works
just as quickly and flawlessly when we hitch up and leave. But, suddenly this twenty-first century
computer technology has come to life on its own and has taken over our world,
and it feels like we have been cast in a Sci-Fi movie, and we are downright
scared of it tonight. Please tell me I’m dreaming.
By now, all four hydraulic jacks
have fully retracted. The back of the
rig is resting nicely on its wheels.
But, the front of the 5th wheel...oh
Lord...is sitting at the lowest point possible, nearly resting on the
earth. Our ship is tipped bow first
toward the ground. Not good.
The Bigfoot system continues to
run even though the jacks have fully retracted.
Each jack has its own pump and we continue to hear and smell at least
one of these motors as it continues to strain.
I decide to call my brother Richard in Arizona (also a full-time RVer) for
advice.
“Pull out your user manuals,” he
says. “Find the one on the Bigfoot
system, and see if there is a way to override the system.”
I go back into the rig and search
through a stack of user manuals but find no manual on the Bigfoot system. No help
there. I go back outside. G disconnects the electric, pulling the 50
amp cable from the site plug; then disconnects the accessory battery.
It is suddenly eerily quiet. We are staring at each other in stunned
disbelief surrounded by cold darkness but for the narrow beams of our flashlights. Dread silently creeps over us as we consider the
complications that may arise with disconnecting the rig on this cold, cold
night. Our shipwrecked 5th wheel would
sit unlevel and unheated through the remainder of this night.
We decide to go to a hotel for the
night and figure things out in the morning.
G absently pulls on a pair of jeans and begins packing an overnight
bag by flashlight. I put the Westie’s sweater on him,
as the temperature is already dropping inside the rig. I prepare an overnight bag for myself and ask
G absently, “Why weren’t you wearing britches?”
G turns and looks at me. “I wasn’t
wearing britches?” he asks never having realized. He doesn’t even remember that he’s just
pulled jeans on moments ago. Stress can
do things like that to you.
We go to three hotels and are
turned away because they do not accept pets.
The fourth place we find is a cheap motel, but there is no night shift,
and the office is closed. We consider
going to friend’s house for the night but don’t want to startle them by banging
on the door in the middle of the night.
It is now 2:00 a.m. We don’t call
them because we figure no one answers their cell phone in the wee hours.
We drive back to the rig and
decide to tough it out there for the night.
We pull on extra clothes and crawl beneath the covers. I have a hood up over my head. My face is freezing so I duck beneath the
covers. Anxiety over our situation
prevents me from sleeping.
“Trust me.” I hear a tiny voice
inside whisper to me. Is that you, God?
“Trust me.” Really? Can I really believe that everything will
turn out alright?
I can tell that G has fallen
asleep by the sound of his breathing. I
can’t fall asleep. G and I each get up
to use the bathroom four times during the night because it is so cold. We have to walk uphill, and we stagger like drunken sots. On my last trip, I reach down to make sure
the Westie is okay. He is curled into a
tight knot in his dog bed. His ears are
ice cold. He doesn’t move, and I
wonder if he is in a hypothermic coma. I
pick him up, and he comes slowly awake and starts shaking violently with the cold. I take him back to bed with me and stuff him
under the covers. This is a first. We never let our pets sleep with us. Duncan the Westie curls against me in a tight
ball, and after a few moments his shaking stops and he drifts off to sleep.
Morning comes and we get our
first look at our shipwrecked rig in the daylight. It is still shocking even now to see it sadly
listing forward on its bow. The bottom
entry step is jammed into the ground.
Since it is Sunday morning and we normally attend church we decide to do
the important thing first and get ready for church.
Since we are parked on the church
property we utilized the warm church to dress and have breakfast. Meanwhile, my brother Richard rose early in
Arizona and went online to the Bigfoot website in an effort to troubleshoot for
us. He calls me and supplies an
emergency phone number for tech service.
After church we called the
emergency number and talked to a tech in Michigan. I explained the problem, and he told me that
moisture on the panel most likely caused the Emergency All Up button to spontaneously activate.
The remedy was to remove the
screws from the system panel, unplug it and take it inside and blow dry the
mother board. Once reconnected, the tech
walked G through resetting the Bigfoot system.
In a few moments the touch pad was responding properly, and the
leveling system had righted the rig. Our
listing ship was once more afloat. At
the tech’s suggestion, we encased the panel in a plastic zip lock bag before
reinstalling it. Hopefully, the bag will
keep the moisture out and this will never happen again.
Miraculously, the rig is
intact. Our pipes did not freeze. Nothing was damaged or broken. The contents in our freezer
didn’t thaw. The ice cubes didn’t even
thaw. The bicycles didn’t get crushed or
damaged even though they were tucked beneath the overhang of front of the 5th wheel.
It’s strange how we can be
stationary and still be having such wild adventures.
We have a few more grey hairs, more knowledge about the Bigfoot system
and PTSD.
We were afraid to go to bed the
next night, with fear that the Bigfoot computer would again take over our
world.
P.S. I forgot to take a photo of our shipwrecked
rig. Well, there’s always next time...
Back on the level
