Saturday, February 26 - Finally left Tenino, WA and drove into Oregon. A little over 130 miles . This was our first medium long day of pulling the trailer, even though it was only around 3 hours of actual drive time. Not surprisingly, I was more than a little nervous. The first part of the drive was quite easy because we had about 15 miles on a two lane road, which surprisingly is easier than on an interstate. That gave us a chance to get used to towing again, a little bit. The first part on I-5 wasn't bad because there wasn't much traffic and the road was fairly smooth. There was a rest stop about 40 miles on, so we took the opportunity to stop for a couple minutes just to relax. Then about an hour later, we were both getting hungry, so started looking for a truck stop. Found a place called Rebel truck stop and had lunch. Huge burgers at a very reasonable price.
As we started getting closer to Vancouver, WA, the traffic started to get heavier, although still going highway speed, and the road got a lot more bumpy and with more curves. That, along with getting passed by more and more trucks made the driving more challenging. I like to drive with the cruise control on so that I don't have to fiddle with the gas so much. Anyway, there was one bridge we went over that had a long gradual curve and was quite bumpy. The trailer started swaying around some and we discovered that the truck has built in sway control. It canceled the cruise and slowed down to get under control.
Getting into and thru Portland was actually easier than expected because of some heavy traffic. I would have thought that would have been more difficult, but it wasn't because we were going slow again. After that, we only had about 15 miles to Woodburn. Got a nice pull-thru spot in the park which is next to an outlet mall. We spent a little over an hour getting set up again and then got to relax. We were both exhausted.
Sunday, February 27 - rain, rain, rain and cold. Did a little shopping, but generally took it easy. Tomorrow, we'll probably go to the mall and look around. We plan on staying here for two weeks. Both Adam and Sue have birthdays in that time, so we'll be celebrating both.
M
Glad you finally got started. Just keep on going a little at a time. At least you're in no hurry...you're retired now!!
ReplyDeleteDo you have anti-sway bars hooked up to your hitch. I was told to ask because it keeps the trailer from being sucked into the tractor trailer draft.
ReplyDeleteWe have a load distribution hitch and an anti-sway bar. Unfortunately, we've been given differing guidance on how to set it. One dealer said to set it very tight and the other said just barely tight. I've also seen a couple of YouTube videos, most of which suggest it be set tight. We'll just have to experiment to see what works best
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