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Narrow escape
Last night when I was setting up in Missoula, MT, I had a narrow escape. The wheels had been chocked. The legs were extended. The rig was leveled from side to side. All looked "go" for releasing the hitch.
Panic struck! The rig began to move backward out of the hitch jaws. I yelled at Dianna to chock the wheels. She said, "I did!" The rig moved back about a foot and a half. The overhang landed hard on the bed rails. All stopped.
I went back to where the wheels were to have been chocked and sure enough, they were. The problem was the CHOCKS DID NOT HOLD! I found it half buried in the gravel. The legs backed off the blocks and dug into the gravel. I went back to the front and extended the legs to the max. It cleared the bed rail. NO DAMAGE TO THE TRUCK OR TO THE RIG!! Not even the tiniest dent!
New problem, as always - now I could not get the rig elevated enough to get the hitch under the king pin. I thought of gathering wood pieces and blocks and using my 8 ton jack on the center of the front frame. That would be precarious and possibly disastrous and besides it was getting dark and it was thundering and raining.
I called Coach-Net. They sent a wrecker. He carefully lifted the nose up high enough to put blocks under the legs at a height where I could then lower the king pin and reconnect to the hitch.
When I setup tonight in Reed Point, MT, all was normal, nothing damaged. Believe me, I had a moment of trepidation when I grabbed the hitch release handle. Nothing moved, whew.
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