So back to The Odyssey for a moment. RJ and I were continuing work on her rig. Here was the condition of her rear bumper. 🙁
She worked at Vycor taping up the bottom edges of the camper, and I cleaned out as much of the rust as I could from the bumper. I then measured and cut stainless sheet metal and shaped it to wrap the holes. Next we mounted the new plating into place and it was ready until it was time to paint it in bed liner. And at that point- Laura’s travels were about up; it was time for me to head back to Anchorage.
So my daughter and I were headed North this time for another long haul, and the trip was going pretty well… until we hit the first 65 miles per hour zone since I had put the pods on Serenity. I am sharing the picture I sent to Laura of the pods again so you can see the layout.
Now I love getting to tell you about all of our successes, but I have to share our failures too. (Or I should say my failure…) I do this in hopes if you ever try to do the same to your own ToyHome- that you don’t make the same mistakes. I was coming down a pretty steep hill through “The Pass” (FYI: Which is where the Seward Highway travels between the mountains before you get to Turnagain Arm before Anchorage. Notorious for no cell reception) When I reached the bottom of the hill there was a slow vehicle pullout, so I did my due diligence and moved over for the traffic behind me. As the next vehicle passed me they rolled down their window, waving their hands and pointing up. I immediately pulled further over and stopped. As I got out to examine Serenity, I immediately was horrified. The majority of whole front roof rack (Up to where the original one had been mounted) was gone! I looked back to see the newest pod laying on the opposite side of the highway about 1/4 of a mile back. It appeared the whole thing had completely cleared the road and was laying in the opposite ditch. Thank the powers that be that nobody was hurt.
I immediately climbed up to make sure nothing else would fall off the top of Serenity, then waited till traffic was clear to drive down to my pod. When I got down there I pulled her as far off on the side of the road as I could, and there stood a man that had pulled over as well who was inspecting it. I apologized profusely to him for what had happened, and thanked him for pulling over. He calmly just asked me, “Are you going to be able to take that with you?”
I looked at him for a moment, caught off guard, and realized he had only pulled over because he wanted to scrounge the pod I had lost. Still wanting to be polite, I thanked him again for pulling over and told him I had it under control. Looking disappointed, he walked back to his truck carrying a camper in the bed…
I pulled my small travel tool set, and while shaking started to remove the pod from the roof rack pieces, straightening some of the conduit as I went. One of the pieces of conduit had been bent completely in half! My daughter was super patient as I awkwardly and frantically worked on the side of the road. As traffic flew by each gust of wind from the vehicles would rock Serenity and push the pod as I worked on it.
Once I had gotten the pod free of the racking, it was time to deal with the pod itself; I was going to have to disassemble it. I didn’t want to strap it to the roof until we were in a safer place with what had just happened, but also it was too big to fit inside Serenity. I took it apart, it was a painstaking process and it fought me the whole way. A few of the old nuts were corroded to the point where I was not going to be coax them free with the tools I had- so I worked them through the plastic, and with that and a little inspection I figured out what had happened…
With the pod having to be side loaded, it was positioned less than in it’s optimal aerodynamic position. With the hardware placed the way it was when it was built- this allowed enough air to lift up in the side/center of the pod tugging at the lid. When we had come down the hill, the wind had lifted the lid enough that it ripped the whole hasp lock assembly (with lock included) through the plastic, allowing the pod lid to fly into the open position. The lid acted as a giant sail- ripping the pod and racking out and across the highway. It was very lucky how it pulled it out and over enough to completely clear the road and traffic behind me. 😓
I managed to eventually get the pod apart, cutting my hands a few times in the process but with my daughter kindly handing me band-aids as I went. 🩹💙💧 With the lid stacked over the bottom like a set of matching bowls, I was able to maneuver the shell into Serenity’s walkway. I then collected the remaining rack and hardware pieces, removed what was left that was possibly unsecured from the roof, and stacked it all in Serenity. With a panicked heart and mind from the adrenaline- we loaded back up and turned back towards Anchorage.
When we arrived to Girdwood I pulled over at the edge of the gas station parking lot, and climbed up to take a look at the roof. Unfortunately there were quite a few holes where the rack had been pulled out. I pulled our travel tube of caulking and spent a few minutes filling the holes until I could take care of them properly at home. Once the patch job was complete we finished our way to Anchorage where we decided to camp among some other RV’s in a Walmart parking lot.
It was a beautiful evening, so it was good conditions for me to unload the shell of the pod and spend a little while figuring out how I was going to strap it to the roof. (Otherwise it was going to be taking up our whole living space) When I finished figuring it out; I sent Laura this picture to give her a status report.
As I finished a friendly older gentleman came over to admire Serenity. As we talked I told him the tale of what had just happened, and he nodded in understanding. We talked for a while and he told me some of the stories from his travels. It was nice conversation and it helped lift the mood and bring back my internal peace to calm… 😌
We spent the next day in Anchorage, and picked Laura up that night. (Yay!) I checked on the straps for the pod up top a few times on the rest of the trip. But overall, The rest of our travel home was pretty uneventful, and to me that was just fine. 😅
Geoff Murphy 2/24/2020
😬👍😊