OT: I'm betting you'll find this hilarious!

[Your Old Dog]

I mentioned in another thread that I bought a new travel trailer for the first time. So I'm cruising around the RV forums just trying to learn. One of the guys just posted this from YouTube!

DISCLAIMER: DONT' BE DRINKING ANYTHING WHILE CLICKING ON THIS URL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21dTTe76UJA

Just cracks me up Make sure you watch it to the end and dont' give up on it too early

[Dawai]

OOPS.

Coming down fort Mountain I got to messing with the trailer brakes on the 3/4 ton truck. got home, got to change pads and calipers. A pivotal brake applicator (pendulum) does not do too well on a steep incline, they tend to slide the trailer wheels.

[matador]

The litlle engine that could.........,or not.

[kmp]

For those of you that also used to read little train books to yor kids about 20 years ago

"I think I can, I think I can........I thought I could, I thought I could

Keith

[BadDog]

That's actually quite old, I saw it on a tow/diesel rig site at least a couple of years ago. Still funny though...

[Doc Nickel]

That's actually quite old, I saw it on a tow/diesel rig site at least a couple of years ago. Still funny though...

-And listen to the soundtrack. It's a clip off of America's Funniest Home Videos (or a similar show) which would put it around '93 to '95.

Just as E-mail revitalized the flagging scam-by-mail and pyramid scheme industries, YouTube and Google Video have revitalized the "old video clips as humor" segment.

Doc.

[Wayne02]

I mentioned in another thread that I bought a new travel trailer for the first time.

First time RV owner, eh?

Assume your S/O will be traveling with you to the various campgrounds and such? If so, please have someone video you and your wife backing the rig into the various campsites for the first year of your travels. Make sure it includes good audio, post it to you-tube, and give us a heads up when available.

Wayne

[Dawai]

Hence the popularity of "pull through" campsites.

I hated backing up 8,000 lbs of travel trailer withe the truck, When I turn my head, my vision blurs.. Yeah, I hated it.

BUT, I bought a rear view Twist 12 volt LCD camera and monitor WOW how clear.. I am trying to figure a way to aim it from the cab. Perhaps mount it into a spotlight? I got two to mount.

Tattooing in the 38' bus, buying 40'foot site in the meet, ya better get there first. Bus'es don't go sideways.

[Your Old Dog]

I won't have much trouble backing up. It's my wife who will pay the price! I get short tempered when folks let me bump into stuff with out hollering something like, "hey honey, now would be a good time to hit the break as you're about to trash our trailer on an oak tree branch!".

I think I'll go ahead and get a camera straight off. It will make the lane changes safer too. Now a days they got a three camera unit. When going straight you get the rearview of the rf, soon as you hit the left turn signal the left camera automatically pops up on the screen so you can see if anyone in your lane. It's actually pretty cheap technology when you consider how useful it is.

[BadDog]

Camp grounds and lane changes are the least of your worries, at least you have direct control over those. You have to work even harder to watch out ahead. At any given time, it is safe (prudent) to assume that there are AT LEAST 10 morons within 100 yards of you on the road for every 5 cars you see. You will probably still be estimating short, but it’s a start.

So, things are bad enough just driving around on the roads at all, especially in a big city where the average displayed intelligence drops relative to size of the city. As someone who has towed all manner of stuff from coast to coast, I can tell you this gets 100 times worse when you’re towing. For one thing, 99% of the people start treating you like they do the big OTR trucks. You’re leaving extra room so you’ve got room to stop as traffic is suddenly beginning to slow ahead for no apparent reason? Oh, well that must mean 2 moron yuppies in an SUV and a Beamer can jump into your lane to move up 2 car lengths further than where they were! Then you realize one has just decided he simply must take the exit that is already going buy, so he hammers the brakes immediately after changing into your lane 2 car lengths ahead of you. This and many scenarios like it have played out many, MANY times in my travels. Also, contrary to what would seem common sense (which is anything but “common” on the road), almost every single car that pulls up on a feeder WILL pull out in front of you, no matter how close you are! Seems the reasoning is, your towing, and they don’t want to get stuck BEHIND you since you are probably going to be going slow, so they pull out right in front of you, not realizing that the reason for the “slow” also means you can’t stop. And the list goes on, I could continue all night.

Just be VERY careful out there, particularly till you’ve got a few thousand miles and several big cities under your belt. And make sure you carefully pre-flight the trailer and truck before every trip and do a walk around at every fill up. Go ahead and get in the habit right away, and fight the urge to become complacent/jaded after the Nth time with no problems, because N+1 might be the one to avert a pending disaster. You would be surprised how many times this has saved me a great deal of grief, and also how many times I STILL had a great deal of grief in spite of it...