Assateague Misadventure

January in Pennsylvania can be very beautiful. When a freshly fallen snow covers the hills and the forests with a sugar frosting, it appears as though you are looking into a picture painted by Currier & Ives. You might expect to see a one horse open sleigh pass by, and if you are lucky, you might see one here where we live in Amish country.

The Airstream was just a big round mound of snow that day in January when I decided that Assateague Island was to be our destination next summer. I’d heard of the wild horses there and how nice the beach was. There’s nothing like planning a trip in the Airstream to pass a cold winter’s day.

Winter soon passed into spring and the wildflowers began to bloom again in the woods as the world awakened from it’s winter sleep. That’s when I started to clean out the Airstream. I polished up the countertops and the appliances. I vacuumed the carpet and cleaned out the storage compartments. I didn’t have to fix anything, because nothing ever seems to break on the Airstream.

The kids got out to play as the temperature warmed. Mikey would ride his tricycle up and down the driveway making all the appropriate motor noises, of course. I would often see him back his trike up to the Airstream and pretend to hitch it up to his tricycle; calling to mind the classic Wally Byam picture pulling an Airstream with a bicycle …only this was the junior version! Mikey would even attach the Airstream’s safety chains to the tricycle and then jump on the trike and pull with all his might, front wheel spinning on the driveway! He’d go about a foot before the chains went taut and yanked him to a stop. He kept pretending he was still going full tilt with all the appropriate motor noises, of course!

Soon, it was getting to be the end of May and school would soon be out, allowing us to leave on our trip. About three weeks before we were to leave, I remembered that I had to get the Airstream inspected at the inspection station. Pennsylvania requires an annual inspection for a trailer over 3000 pounds gross weight. Since the ’71 Globe Trotter 21 is reputed to weigh about 3500 empty, I had to have the inspection station put a new sticker on it. I made an appointment with the inspection station on a convenient day.

On the day of the inspection, I backed the old Chrysler station wagon to hitch up the trailer. I got the trailer hitched just fine. I hooked up the electrical plug, safety chains and the equalizer bars. As is my usual practice, I connect up the breakaway switch last. But, alas, where was the cable for the breakaway switch??? It was GONE! VANISHED! MISSING IN ACTION ! Oh! That made me mad. My guess is that Mikey had hooked that cable up to his tricycle and yanked it out of the breakaway switch. I will never know for sure, because like everything else around here that is bad, nobody ever knows how it happened or who did it. They say, “ NOT ME!” or “I DUNNO”.

I hopped in the car anyway, since it was nearly time for my appointment at the inspection station and started down the driveway. I got about 5 feet. I had no trailer brakes. The trailer had been plugged in to 120 volts while I had been doing all the cleaning. Since I was in and out, I left the power on. Unfortunately, when the breakaway switch was pulled, the trailer brake magnets were energized. Normally, the magnets would be energized by the trailer battery. But not this time! Since I had the trailer plugged into 120 volts, my converter was making 12 volts 24 / 7 !! Those magnets were energized for days …maybe for weeks …until they burned out. There’s no way I was going to drive that rig across town with no brakes, so I just backed in, disconnected, and drove to the inspection station to tell them my sad tale.

The guys at the inspection station were very understanding and offered to sell me a set of new brake magnets to get me going again. The vacation was still about two weeks away and they said they would have the magnets in a day or two. This inspection station is about a mile from home. Our nearest Airstream dealer is Turner Airstream down in Jeannette, PA, which is about a two-hour drive from here. Getting the magnets from the local place would be quick and I would not have to drive either two hours one way or incur a shipping charge. It sounded good to me at the time.

Several days went by and the inspection station didn’t call. I was getting nervous, so I called them. “Oh, yes. They will be here any time now”, they said. More days went by. “We called the supplier and they said they will be here tomorrow”, I was told another day. I started packing the Airstream for the trip. “Don’t worry. They will be here”, they assured me another day. Soon, my scheduled departure day was ONE day off. No magnets. What now?

It was time to get on the telephone in a desperate attempt to locate a set of magnets for my Airstream. I called RV places all around the area. No luck. There are no RV places within 20 miles of here, so if anyone had a set, it would mean driving many miles to get them. I was prepared to drive all the way to Pittsburgh! Eventually I located a set in Grampian, PA, which is only about 25 miles from here. I was in the car as soon as I got off the phone and was headed to Grampian to buy the magnets.

By the end of the day, I had the magnets installed and the Airstream was ready to go. In retrospect, it would have been much faster to have ordered the magnets from my Airstream Dealer and have them mailed to me. It would have been here in two days! Lesson learned!

The departure day had arrived but the trailer was still not inspected. I called around and found that there was one other place in town that could inspect my trailer. He told me to bring it right up and he would put a sticker on it. So, we hitched up the Airstream, we all piled into the car, and we left for Assateague Island …only the first “pit stop” was the inspection station. What a relief it was to finally have that crisp new inspection sticker placed in the window of the Airstream. What a relief it was to finally be on our way to a new adventure on Assateague Island. Wouldn’t you know …it started to rain.

Twelve miles after we left the inspection station, there was a loud screech that emanated from the engine compartment, accompanied by the acrid smell of burning rubber. Quickly I stopped on the shoulder of the highway ….I remember it was next to an Amish farmhouse. Upon inspection under the hood, it was immediately obvious that the alternator had locked up solid. The two alternator belts were slipping …and screeching …and smoking over the stopped alternator pulley. The bearings had locked tight. I shut everything down and loosened the alternator bolts to slacken the belt. Since we were sitting next to an Amish farm, there would be no telephone (they’re not allowed to have one) and no ride to a garage to get parts (unless you like to ride in a horse and buggy), and certainly no auto parts in his barn! Fortunately, the car has three belts. Two of them go to the alternator, but the water pump and the power steering pump can work off the other remaining belt. Good! So, I turned off all the electrical things like lights, wipers, defrosters and the radio and raced for home before the battery died.

On the way back into town, I stopped at my favorite auto parts store hoping they would have an alternator for a nearly 20 year old Chrysler. Since Chrysler Corp. used the same parts in all their Dodge, Plymouth and Chrysler cars, and they used them for many years, the auto parts store actually had something. The alternator they had was to fit the year after my car, but it appeared to be the same thing, so I bought it for $42. We got home before the battery ran out. By this time, it was getting late in the afternoon. Becky and the kids went inside to make supper and I set to work changing the alternator. This took 20 minutes …because I’m kinda slow. I like these old cars …they are so easy to work on! I think I was done just about when supper was ready. We ate while the battery charger replenished the battery enough to start the car.

Soon we were on our way again. We didn’t make it to Assateague Island that day. We ran out of time and stayed at Bald Eagle State Park …in the rain, of course. But the next day we made it! …And we had a great time!

Ever since that incident, I have stored my breakaway cable a different way. I now wrap it around the jack post a couple of times and then lock it with a padlock into the hitchpin hole. This locks the hitch closed and keeps the breakaway cable from “walking off” like it did before. If you have kids around, I suggest you do the same …unless you’d like to repeat my Assateague Misadventure!