On Feb. 3, 2010 we lost our brother in law, Paul Higginbotham. He fought very hard, but succumbed to pneumonia (and related respiratory complications). He was a good friend and family member, and we will miss him greatly.
On Sat. Feb. 20, a Celebration of Life was held for him in the Cedar Room at the Lake Wildwood clubhouse. The weekend began with out of town friends and family gathering at our house for dinner on Friday night and to start preparing food for both the Celebration and dinner the next night. This was followed by the Celebration Sat. afternoon, dinner for MANY back at our house that evening, and a champagne brunch the next morning.
A slideshow of the weekend can be found at;
Pictures of Paul's Celebration Weekend
On Friday morning I got up early and went to the storage yard to bring the 5er back to the house. The plan was to use it as a guest suite for the weekend for Paul's son Andy and family, and then have it available for the kids to use as a game room while the adults occupied the rest of the house. After hookup I was pulling it through the storage yard and for the briefest of moments I went brain dead.
My mind wandered to not using black spray paint to cover some markings on the trailer hitch...dumb...and then it happened. One of those moments you fear. I heard a crunch and felt a tug. I had sideswiped a parked RV as I negotiated a tight corner.
That corner has storage units to the left, storage units straight ahead, and parked RV's on the right...and a narrow drive between. It takes concentration to navigate that course. What in the world was I doing 'allowing' my brain to wander to some inane subject. Go figure! I'm going to write it off as stress, but certainly use it as a lesson for the future...STAY FOCUSED!
Essentially I had 'rubbed' the side of the 5er across the corner of an RV for about 3 feet. The RV had a big ole cover on it, so I had to lift it up to survey the damage (damage other than the obvious rip in that EXPENSIVE cover). I had hit the bumper, and scraped the corner molding. No dents, tears, creases, etc. to the RV itself...looked pretty 'superficial' really. Then I looked at the 5er.
The good news is that it could have been worse...a LOT worse.
There is a storage compartment in the 'basement' of the 5er that goes from one side to the other, and is about 3ft long and 18" tall. The door swings up on a long hinge, and has 2 latches and a lock at the bottom...that door got the bulk of the damage. The hinge was scraped along its whole length, and on of the latches was pulled completely out. The good news is that I can still open the door (with gloves, pliers and screwdriver) and close it (with a rubber hammer). There is also a nice tear in the sheeting under the door where it had hit the bumper of the RV. This is 'cosmetic' and won't effect use (but still needs to be fixed).
I stopped in the office and reported the incident, then went home to sulk.
Later that day after the trailer was all set up and other chores had been done I got a phone call from the owner of the RV. Turns out he is a fellow Lake Wildwood resident and after comparing notes we realized we have played golf together a couple of times. He also has the same insurance carrier, so the wheels are in motion (pun intented) to get both our rigs repaired.
Words of wisdom;
Beauty is only skin deep, but DUMB goes clear to the bone ;-)
For those not familiar with hooking up 5th wheel trailers to the pickup, with a regular tailgate you have to lower it to be able to back up under the trailer 'hitch', and then you have to close it before towing. So the drill of opening/closing, each time you connect/disconnect can become a little tedious...plus it leaves too much opportunity for human error (as in forgetting to either open or close, backing into the trailer with it down, etc.)
