Having not watched any of your videos before. I instantly figured you were a nurse. You see I’m a 30 year organ (kidney) transplant patient and fantastic nurses have been a big part of my life life. I want to thank you for being a nurse!! We are also located in Ohio in the Cleveland area.
Good tip to always keep the chains hooked up to the truck.👍 We got into a similar situation while boondocking at the Grand Canyon. Terrain was very uneven , trailer setup was almost complete when the trailer slid by not even 8", bending one of the front jacks. Would be nice to have parking brakes on travel trailers like European ones 🤔😉
We had this happen to us in Michigan. Slid toward the lake. No fun! We switched to the heavy rubber tire chocks. No longer use plastic on the tong jack. Too easy to slide or get crushed. Glad all worked out well.
been living fulltime 3 years - never secure tires unless on decline or incline - I don't use blocks to raise a side, I use the levelers that cradle the tires - glad nothing got damaged for you
Watched your “chock slide-out”! Have just experienced the same thing - twice!!! Trailer needed a little lift on one side. We use Anderson leveler. We also use the heavy duty solid chocks. However, we were on freshly layer larger sized gravel. Chocked kicked out! We reviewed and reset. Same result! Third time a charm as I placed a think rubber mat under tires, chocks and leveler. Then my wife and I took a potty break and had a couple of “beers”. 😁First, time in 40 years…
Hello ya'll it's hard to imagine this happening to pros but remember we all have made mistakes. I'm glad ya'll are OK and still out there on the road. All my best....Phil
Harbor Freight for large rubber chocks. Back when I used the yellow plastic ones, I crushed more than one before switching to heavy duty rubber chocks.
For your consideration...I had a Travel Trailer for several years and found out I was hooking my safety chains up wrong (looked like yours, going straight back) found they are suppose to be crossed to form a cradle so if your rig somehow becomes unhooked , the tongue will come to rest on the crossed chains and not just drop down in between them. Just a thought.
Early in my towing career, we went camping in the mountains. We were parked on a pretty good slope. I didn't block the tires and when I unhitched, the trailer took off down the hill. The only thing that stopped it was the safety chains. Live and learn.
Great video. Glad it wasn’t a major oopsie and you both are safe. You’ve probably rocked this look for a while, but I haven’t noticed. But really like the hair style in this video Steph. Keep up the great work you two. Safe travels.
X-chocks would not have stopped that. They are good for stabilizing the movement you feel while moving inside the RV. Look into a heavy rubber chock. Also, after the same thing happened to us, I switched to the Ox Block under my tongue jack and highly highly recommend it.
I disagree with this opinion. I have had x-chocks(BAL 28010) for 4 years and 2 trailers(Salem 27dbk & wolfpack 30ft toyhauler). They feel like a parking brake and perform very well with my 8,000lb campers. I live in Michigan and some of the northern state parks are hilly.
Well, first glad your safe, second, Happy anniversary and lastly you guys were 30 minutes south of us. Hope you had some fun while at Hocking Hills, Buckeye Lake and downtown Columbus. Enjoy the special anniversary vacation!!
We’re in south east GA, Wife is . Travel nurse.. we call rv resorts. They say they’re full for long term. No sites open. Then I use the golden words, wife’s a travel nurse, and 60% of the time they will find room, open a daily/weekly spot and use it for long term. lol…. Full timing and its adventures. She’s been a travel nurse 7 yrs straight. Always something, full timing is a full time job in itself .. but love it.
Mike and Steph...y'all did great in overcoming the scary moment. We have been camping for years in our '18 2600RD and have all our check lists and processes down (like y'all) but we had a very similar situation in Sept packing up to leave NASCAR. "I" was rushing to beat the rain and was getting all the exterior stuff done while my wife was buttoning up the inside. The right side was on one lego block per wheel and the tongue was sitting on an Anderson 8" bucket...pretty level side to side, shouldn't be a problem. I remove the x-chocks and while walking to the front of the camper it rolled backwards and off the 8" block while my wife was inside...scary for her for sure. I always have the nose 1" higher than level so the AC condensation and rain will drain to the back of the rig and just didn't think about it...again rushing to beat the rain. We were fortunate and blessed that nobody got hurt, only the foot on the jack was a little bent and thankfully I carry a bottle jack and blocking that helped lift the rig back up after chocking the wheels. Lots of lessons learned in that moment...accidents happen when you're rushing around, not following your checklist and not working together. It will NEVER happen again as I will wait to make sure we're on the same page communicating and just put on my rain gear...afterall it was in the rig. Thanks for sharing your story as I'm sure it will help others and hopefully our story does as well. Safe travels and enjoy your new inner city spot.
Setting up or tearing down in the rain always makes us feel rushed, no matter how much we tell ourselves to take it slow and follow the process! Glad it ended up okay and with no injuries! ❤️
Not sure how close to real time you are, but it can be very busy there for OSU home games due to parking and ride. Also please make sure you lock your doors up. You are smack dab between campus and some of the Columbus inner city.
I have replaced our plastic chocks with solid rubber ones. They do fail also. The scissor style are also great when the wheels are on cribbing. We keep both with us.
Happy Anniversary! Very scary when something like that happens. When we park our camper in our driveway I feel that way every time. Our driveway is on a 5% slope and needless to say I also leave the chains hooked up. I also anchored a huge wood block on the driveway as a chalk.
The first time I used our Andersen Levelers I put the chalks on the wrong side and did close to what happened to your trailer, luckily ours stayed on the wood under the tongue jack. I say this so that you don't feel like you are the only folks something like this has happened to. I will also say that ever since then the Andersen Levelers have worked flawlessly and I highly recommend them. We use them in conjunction with other wheel chalks that we put on the side away from the levelers, so basically we are chalking all 4 wheels. For the additional chalks I would suggest a trip to Harbor Freight to get the solid hard rubber ones. They work great and are basically indestructible. Glad to see that nothing was damaged on your camper. Happy anniversary and safe travels!!
My husband built a nice wooden platform for our tongue jack to rest upon. We only use those orange plastic "lego" blocks under our scissor stabilizers or Morryde steps. Happy 10 years together! 🍷
I used to keep two 3 level 2x6 cut at an angle to make backup and leveling easy. Also kept another 2 2x6 In the back of the truck to put under the tongue to make it easier to level up to the truck. Y’all did everything right just weak ground. One other thing I did was bought two heavy duty truck chocks off ULINE which are 10x stronger than the yellow chocks.
FYI we had the same thing happen to us on our first solo camping experience 3 years ago and we use the Anderson levelers. The lesson we learned is ALWAYS put the chucks in and install the small wedges under the ramp of the Anderson levelers before disconnecting from the truck!!!!! We were not very smart the first time we used the levelers!!! Thanks to some friendly neighbors we were able to get the camper back on the hitch and secured properly prior to disconnecting from the truck!!!!
Congrats, happy anniversary! trailer rolls upon unhitching - been there, done that with a 5th wheel! harbor freight rubber chocks work better than the plastic chocks; make sure you chock on both sides, front and rear, especially when using levelers... the trailer can roll off those levelers.
So scary! We’ve slipped a couple of times on the Andersen levelers - just an inch or two to the side, not off the jack blocks. If we need to go up high on one side we will use them, but actually feel better on the “Lego” blocks. Glad all was ok!
Happy Anniversary! Thanks for sharing. Love Columbus area, plenty to do! As many have auggested I upgraded to solid rubber chalks. I missed how you convinced Korbel to extend your stay past 1 week. Can you share here?
We loved the area! Oh man it's a story, just didn't make the video. We spent a couple weeks making phone calls and made multiple trips in person. Finally got ahold of someone in the main office who reached out to someone else who finally said since I was working as a travel nurse, it would be okay for us to stay longer. Worth the effort though!
First happy anniversary you guys I will start chalking my wheels on my camper never had that happen to me yet but there’s always a first I’m from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. I don’t know if you’re ever going to get that way to do work but if you ever need a campground get in touch with me and I can try helping you out nothing in the city of Pittsburgh probably have to do some driving to go to a campground though, if you ever get up to northeastern Ohio, that’s where I do most of my camping there’s a few good campgrounds up here I like the state parks most of all. Thanks again another great video. Safe travels.
I had my chains hooked when I made the same mistake, saved my bacon when my trailer attempted to run away… was not a rookie RVer by any means, just underestimated just how un-level my site was!
Not a fan of the hard plastic wheel chocks. I suggest you use the big rubber ones, Harbor Freight sells two different types, once weight is put against them they flex and really dig into the ground. There is a reason why military, airports, and other such fields use primarily rubber blocks.
I'm a noob, I use x-chocks and Anderson levelers, they are great. I actually left my car in drive with the emergency brake on, luckily I left the chains attached to the car, and when I couldn't get the hitch ball to release, I figure it was because there was no play between TT and suv, so I just reached my foot in and released the brake, and the car took off. The chains caught the car and the x-chocks caught the TT, and I just had to re-position, re-level, etc. But the car would have shot across the road and T-boned a parked car or worse missed the car and hit a TT with occupants in it. Anyway, love the X-chocks.
So sorry that happened. We did almost the same thing with our TT when we had it. We were setting up at the campground and started lifting it off the truck hitch, and it started rolling backwards. Right behind us, was a deep revine and the both of us are pulling on the tounge of a a 6000lb RV to keep it from going off the cliff down in the revine. Like we’re gonna stop it 😂. Luckily it did stop and we got the chocks behind the wheels. It did bend the tongue jack some but we were able to fix it and tighten back up. Lesson learned for sure.😂. Now in the 5th wheel, we definitely make sure it’s chocked first. Happy Anniversary 🎉
It is unsettling when you unhitch and your trailer takes off! Unhitching with truck and trailer in a bind or on unlevel ground will cause it. Experience will tell you what to watch out for. Be safe
Definitely try the Anderson Levelers. They lock your wheels in and are so easy to use. Those paired with level mate pro and smooth sailing. As long as your 4” or less out of level the Anderson levelers will do the job. The level mate pro makes this easy to know if your within 4”.
We had a similar scare when camping near the water on super sandy soil, so definitely feel your pain! A storm was rolling through so everything was really wet and we were trying to unhook in the heavy rains. We were chocked well but with the wet sandy soil, as soon as we came off the ball the entire trailer shifted on the soft ground and fell off the blocks. Because of the level of the site, even at full tongue extension we didn't have enough height to get back on the ball of our truck to reset and try again. Luckily the campground also stored trailers and had a bobcat with a ball attachment for quickly picking up and moving trailers. They were able to use that to get us off the ground. It was terrifying! If not for that bobcat I'm not sure how we would have fixed that one!
I live just south of Columbus and I just bought my first camper which is small single axle 14 foot floor space and I bought it to stay in cause I'm looking for some land in WV to put a place on and figured I would stay in it while I'm building and I don't know hardly anything about campers and have a little fear of the unknown ins and outs of it the only thing I have a little knowledge of is I had a small trailer that I hauled my quad on and sometimes work for my ex landlord that had a used car lot and would tow with a large trailer or car dolly when he bought at the auction, one time I was riding passenger with him coming from the east coast on the Pennsylvania turn pike and we got a flat on the duely truck we were pulling a full size van on the dolly and we plugged it and not long the plug came out so we did it again and it came out again so he decided to go to a service station and have them patch it from the inside and when we was turning into the place I heard a little funny noise and looked out my window and the van was passing us by 😳 the neck on the dolly broke off and this was no small one it was heavy duty we had to have a wrecker pick it up and put it in the truck but luckily it happened when and where it did because we were going very slow turning in the place and nobody or nothing was hurt or damaged because we were let's say putting it down the road on the turn pike and it could have been a disaster if it broke then 🥵 ps sorry about writing a book 😅
I just picked up a new Imagine 2800 thank you for your insights into this brand. My tailgate just hits the tongue jack and was able to turn it 90 deg. to allow clearance. Super simple hack. Just wondering if yours hit and would this help. Being able to drop gate while hooked up is wonderful.
Next time you stay in the Tulsa area try to stay at the Whispering Oaks RV park. Much nicer then the other place you stayed when you were here. It’s in the Sapulpa area. I live in this park and love it. Ask the owner if they have any available on the newer top part. Nice view and bigger lots.
I suggest you get rid of the plastic chocks and get some rubber ones like Harbor Freight has. Also, the Andersons are great if you're too far out of level but I use the rubber parts if I can.
My experience is that the flat plate on the bottom of your tongue jack can also slip, particularly when it is placed on those hard plastic levelers. I had used the same setup but at times, I could actually feel the tongue jack slipping and when you looked at it, you could see the slippage (my wheels were chocked) . I removed that flat plate on the bottom of the tongue jack and purchased an Andersen EZ Block jack stand (I assume other things could work as well) which has a circular indenture on the top, and the tubular portion of the tongue jack fits right in. No more slipping and I have never put that plate back on yet. I don't know if it would have totally prevented what happened to you but I am sure it would have helped a lot.
I stayed at Korbel East and I think I had to run my sewer hose to the opposite side "passaneger" to hook up. Overall, I was very happy. I'm originally from Ohio but live on the west coast. Thank god you were not close to the hitch when it dropped. I have a Class C and use drive up 4 inch Anderson levels for the front, but I can use the square ones if I need to go higher.
I've stayed in several first-come first-served campgrounds. It's always a little stressful not knowing 100% for sure that I have a site waiting for me, but it's also great if you don't know how long you'll be staying because you can always extend. There's no worrying about if the site is booked after you. I'm glad you were able to get the trailer hitched back up easily enough and nothing was damaged. Knock on wood I haven't had that happen (yet) but every time it shifts coming off the hitch it makes me flinch. I've been using Anderson style levelers for probably 10 or 11 months now and I love them. With blocks you have to go an inch at a time, with the ramps you just pull forward until its level. (I lick to cheat and use 4-low to really creep slowly.) Plus, once you put the chock part in the levelers are essentially also wheel chocks, and good ones. The set I got even came with rubber to put under them for extra grip. Then I can use all 4 chocks on the other side.
Hi mike & steph have xchock like them also put trailer on old fashion wooden 2×10 feel much better ,bought rvlevelerpro makes finding level much easier. Turn on when get to campsite bring up app and watch phone till level ,been stress saver and makes Judy happy . Also you should cross safety chains ,brother in law got a ticket in Saskatchewan Canada .🤔🤟🇨🇦🙂🐴
Tell the true I alls chock both axles on both side. I came close to doing what you did nut a camper next to me advise me on that what you just did . Great videos God Bless both of you be safe
When you get to a place (home?) where you can do it check the bolts on your tongue jack to make sure they’re not bent or deformed and are tight. P.S. Harbor freight has very economical solid rubber wheel chocks. Extra heavy duty with an opening for a rope to be attached so you can keep them together and easily remove them when you’re getting ready to leave.
A "big mistake" 😂 when your guys are moving, please make sure to pack most of the weight in the front of your trailer! (Maybe you know this already) Avoid trailer sway and a real big mistake
Hey you two I must admit we almost had that happen and it will surely scare the s!?t out of ya, I heard you mention Anderson levelers, we looked at those and compared them to the Beech Lane brand and saw the Beech Lane were built better and stronger. Check them out and see what you think, oh and there not orange ... lol ... have a safe trip home .... HAPPY ANNIVERSARY !!!!! Steph I'm a sucker for long red hair .... you two be safe out there ... Enjoy Larry
The other thing we are very happy we purchased that goes along with those Beech Lane levelers is the " Level Mate System " Mike .... We have the trailer leveled from side to side before I even get out of the truck ... because of my wife, and I know your wife is just as amazing as mine is ... check it out and tell me what you think.@@lifererouted
Just a heads up.. go back and watch in slow motion when the hitch slide off. The beams, that the RV trailer should not, " flex that much.", factorys, cheap out on steal beams. You might want to , do a weight inventory. ( yes it's a pain in the ass )... list everything, weight it. Or guess. There to much FOWARD weight. Some trailer RV, have a very small load weight. Note, welding extra support along the side of factory, rail beam can be done. 3" wide flat stock, soild with bend's at least 1/4" thick. From the ball hitch back, then bend by where the factory welds are. And go back say 4 more feet. Get, some C clamps, clean the rail beam. Center the new support. I would go for the outside of the beam. Clamp it up. Call up a welder, who has a mobile truck, hangle a price.paint it with primer. Then hit it with high heat black spray paint... know a engineering friend, ask them what best.
these work for leveler and chock in one and dont have the cost of the andersen. Beech Lane Camper Leveler, and definitely get Ox Blox or even knockoffs, they are WAY better than those lynx levelers. i also use rubber chocks on the "non-level" side. any sliding like that is scary, good thing it slid away from you and the truck, could have been way worse.
My wife starts an oncology infusion contract in Portland in a week. It's also a bit of a drive but it was tricky finding a campground that accepted our dogs, or allowed for long term and didn't feel like we would get robbed. How are you liking the infusion clinic there?
Oh awesome! I bet it was tricky finding a campground there but I'm glad you did. I really liked the infusion clinic! It was so different from my normal icu, but a nice change of pace. Still busy though!
The VERY VERY (last) thing to be unhooked is your safety chains!!! Don’t find out the reason why I say that as I have seen many trailers, roll backwards away from the tow, vehicle and crash into trees and other vehicles!!! So the Very last thing to be disconnected is the chains!!
