North Carolina: where the trip began · Tennessee and Arkansas: stories · Oklahoma and Texas: drove through, with a whole-trip reflection · New Mexico: stories · Arizona: 6 stories · California: 4 stories — Joshua Tree
Today was the day. I finished packing, took care of the last things around the house, and said goodbye to my wife and daughter. I was excited to leave, but saying goodbye was emotional too.
A couple of miles down the road, I stopped to adjust the trailer’s tire pressures. About two hours later, I started running through what I had packed.
Oh crap. My toiletry bag.
A toothbrush and toothpaste would have been easy enough to replace. All my daily medications were in the bag too.
I called my wife, and she offered to bring it. She drove almost two hours to meet me, handed over the bag, and then drove another two hours home. Four hours in the car because I forgot one bag. I have a pretty amazing wife.
I joked that if I forgot anything else when I reached California, I would call and ask her to bring that too. She laughed. It was good to see her again, even if I had only been gone a couple of hours.
Later, the trailer tire monitor suddenly showed zero pressure. I pulled over immediately. The shoulder was narrow, and I couldn’t get the truck and camper any farther from traffic. Opening the driver’s door put it almost into the road, with cars passing, while I still didn’t know whether I had a tire problem.
The tire looked fine. I swapped the front and rear sensors, and the pressure and temperature readings returned to normal. It appeared to be a sensor problem. I was glad the tire was okay, but that was an unpleasant place to find out.
Back on the road, I could feel the trailer behind me through the North Carolina mountains. Some of the curves were a little gnarly, and a few made me uncomfortable with how much the trailer seemed to lean.
The truck handled the climbs well. I was keeping up with the semis and even passing a few. Then I reached Asheville around rush hour, adding traffic to the mountains and towing.
I’ve always loved this part of North Carolina. Despite the day’s problems, it was pretty cool to be driving through it at the beginning of this trip.
Later, I crossed into Tennessee, the first state line of the journey.
— The Guy Behind the Desk
