When Plans Topple
My first camper disaster. It's been a real bummer.
After six nights home in Montana—a wonderful return—I woke up on June 20 raring to go again.
That night, I set up camp in the prettiest little campground you’d ever want to see, Jim & Mary’s RV Park in Missoula. I was roughly 350 miles in, halfway to the first destination of my West Coast swing. I slept soundly, woke up early, and hit the road again.
In Spokane, I met my friend Chellie Mitchell, someone I’ve known since the early days of social media but had never met in person. Chellie’s defining feature, to my mind, is unflappable hope in the face of breathtaking sorrow, a story that’s hers to tell. The visit was as easy and affirming as I hoped it would be. With less than 200 miles remaining in my day, I left our meeting place—a Fred Meyer parking lot—buoyed and hopeful.
It didn’t last.
In the midst of setting up the trailer at the Thousand Trails Crescent Bar campground near Quincy, Washington, I opened the rear door and felt my heart sink.
My refrigerator had fallen out of its cabinet en route and lay askew across the opposite countertop. I didn’t assess the damage until after I rushed in and got it upright in the cabinet again, but I knew it was bad. And it sure enough was.
Just how bad became clearer over the next couple of days as I made arrangements for getting the damage repaired and revised my travel plans on the fly.
The face plate on the cabinet was torn out. The drawer underneath was crushed, its runners bent. The refrigerator, amazingly, still works, but it doesn’t close or open easily like before.
Most damning, for the manufacturer, is what was never there: The four screws that were supposed to attach the fridge to the cabinet top cannot be found. It’s obvious now that they were never installed. All that was needed to topple the refrigerator was gravity and geometry. The mountain passes and curves I traversed en route to Washington—never faster than 65 mph, entirely on interstate and state highways—provided plenty of it.
Eventually, with phone tutelage from my friend Bob Kimpton, I got the refrigerator fortified for travel. You can bet I’ll be checking it repeatedly as I backtrack to Montana. This trip, which was supposed to extend through the July 4 weekend, is soon to be over, the trailer bound for an Ember dealership in Missoula for repairs that should take a few weeks while I cool my heels in Billings.
The warranty rep at Ember (who has been mostly helpful) suggested that I could square the refrigerator away and still complete my planned trip, but if you think I’m going to drive this patched-together setup even farther away from home, you’re nuts. This isn’t a minor flaw I can work around. The refrigerator sits in the slideout, and I’m not opening that until someone can assess it for damage I can’t necessarily see. I’m in a half-functional trailer with major obvious damage that might still be at risk. No way I’m going forward. I’m ending this thing until I have my fully functional trailer back.
And it straight-up sucks.
I’m in a beautiful place, the kind I dreamed of when I launched this adventure, and all I want to do now is go home. I’ve lost something here, something I hope I can recapture once my rig is set right.
I’ve made plenty of mistakes while camping. I’ve bent stairs. I’ve forgotten to unhook things before pulling away. I’ve had hard lessons and felt the rush of relief when some screwup didn’t mess things up as much as it could have. Those miscues were hard to absorb, but they were mine, and I learned something from taking ownership and accountability.
This is something different, though. I’ve been waylaid by someone else’s pure negligence in constructing a rig that I spent tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of having. That negligence has wrecked my plans. I spent two frustrating days finding an Ember dealer that could take my trailer in, wading through warranty red tape, and formulating a plan for getting this rig where it’s going, which will be followed by getting me and my dog and my stuff to where we’re going, through no choice of our own. I’m losing weeks. I’m losing memories I hoped to be making.
Yeah, I’m whining. That’s not my way, and I’ll get over it. Soon, I hope.
But it sure stings now.
"Elkhart-built" is definitely a thing. While Ember has some family roots in traditional RV companies, I did note it was a relatively new company, with potential for fresh approach. But same familiar quality control issues as all the big builders. (Man, can you imagine any car company skipping steps like this as frequently as RV manufacturers apparently do?)
I’m positive that RVing has tested my patience and pocketbook so many times…I started out a different person than I am now. I remember driving back from Alaska with a $1400 new headlight assembly and memories of being terrified repeatedly. I felt like every nerve in my body, every fear in my head, had been tested and stretched to the limit. I had faced my fear of bears. Tested my wits and will. I had nowhere to go but down. Down into relief. Down into relaxation. Such is the hidden benefit of RVing.