#2 Stuck in the Mud!

In retrospect, maybe three days before Christmas is not a good time to decide to get your RV out of its backyard parking space. Especially if you have not had a good hard freeze and the ground is wet from snow and soft.

Hindsight is wonderful, isn’t it?

Jared and I should have realized that things were not going to go well, when we started to remove the tarp from the roof, and found 3-4 inches of ice on the roof underneath the 5 inches of snow. Wherever there was a low point in the tarp, like inside the back rails and up front around the antennae and dish, there was ice. Maybe 50 feet square in total. Crawling around on the roof (fun with the cold, ice and snow), I was able to use my chisel and hammer and chip out blocks of ice that I slid to Jared and he tossed over the edge. After ice removal, taking the tarp off was pretty easy.

By this time the RV engine was nice and warm. I made a running start forward off of the concrete pad into the unknown. With Jared directing, we soon realized it was not going to go so smoothly, and when the back end was about 30 feet into the yard, I was stuck!! With all the torque from the motor, it was hard to tell when the wheels were spinning, and I managed to work the back wheels about 6 inches into the mud before I realized I was in big trouble. Jared knew sooner!

We briefly tried to use the hydraulic jacks to lift the back end onto some boards, but the board under the jack started to sink into the mud and tilt. Jared suggested prophetically that we get some 4X8 ¾ plywood sheets and make a “road” out, but he warned it would require 8 sheets ($$$). The whole procedure was not very promising, so we quit for the day.

After a pretty much sleepless night, I woke early and called the 18 wheeler tow truck. He arrived with a giant truck with a winch, and backed it down the long drive adjacent to my back yard – he couldn’t drive on the grass, or he would have the same problem I did. We put a receiver ball into the RV hitch and he hooked his 1 inch steel cable to it and tugged. We were able to get out of the ruts, and pulled the RV back about 30 feet, turning it a little towards the drive. He was pulling side ways, and was not able to pull too far before the angle of pull was not good and prevented further progress. Just like Jared, he told me I needed plywood sheets to go further (I guess I should listen....)

Fortunately, my neighbor come over to help, and drove me to the lumber yard where we got 8 sheets of ¾ particle board for $3 a sheet. Yes, $3! It was more or less scrap, but perfect for us. I gave the guy at the 84 Lumber yard $5 to buy some donuts for the boys. The Christmas spirit. My neighbor was kind enough to haul the wood for me.

Surprisingly, the crew (neighbor Scott, Jared, and Anne) and I were able to drive the RV right up onto the first sheets with no slip/sliding. From then on, it was pretty easy to keep moving the sheets so the RV was always on the “road”, and after about

100 feet, it was back on the drive. I said “easy” but moving all that plywood took quite a bit of work. Since I was working with not one, but two engineers and a very savvy female, we backed the RV into an almost perfect approach to the 15 foot wide driveway – having to correct by moving forward only once, I think. No problems after that driving it ‘round front.

The total distance travelled was about ½ block, so the trip to Texas will take about 4 years at this rate. Hmmm.........