Peace the day after the accident 🙂

We are back at Reed Bingham State Park again this evening.  There is nothing in the world as peaceful as being in our little Casita in a quiet, pretty campsite.

The left rear panel of the truck. This damage is from the Casita’s belly band.

The funeral itself was a sweet, graveside ceremony.  The throngs of people in and out of the house before and after the funeral were so stressful to me that I was an emotional wreck. I don’t deal well with crowds, anyway, and under the circumstances, I felt like I might fall apart at any time.

We had planned to stay overnight there, but when another brother invited us to park at his house, we gratefully accepted because it would be a lot quieter there.

The tail lights are sticking way out due to the bent side panel and the tail gate won’t open. We duct taped the lights to the truck for the trip home. Red Green would be proud. 🙂

So we got to Glenda and Rex’s house.  I was parking the trailer.  When I am backing up, I always get out of the truck a couple of times to see exactly where the trailer is so I know how to maneuver.

Well, this time I thought I had the truck in Park, but it was actually in Reverse.  I opened the door and saw the ground moving, but was so stressed, it didn’t register.  So I jumped out of the truck….. and it kept going.  The trailer jacknifed, and there was this awful grinding sound.  In the state of mind I was in, I was trying to push the truck away from the trailer while it was still backing up.

Finally, the truck stopped… I guess because it was jacknifed so badly that it jammed.  So Ron jumped into the truck and put it in park.

The damage to the truck was substantial.  I won’t describe it.  Will just post pictures.

The damage to the trailer was limited to a slightly bent  area on the belly band and the bar under the propane tanks popping its weld when the tanks were jammed sideways.  The plastic cover over the propane tanks kept the metal tanks from gouging the Casita’s fiberglass.  There are a few small abrasions that I can probably buff out and recoat with Poliglow and they won’t even be noticeable.

The tail lights

I thought I was over the stress and nervousness today.  But we went into Adel for dinner.  It’s a terrible little town… run down, and very scary looking to me.  We ate at the world’s worst Chinese buffet after threading through a parking lot with concrete barricades everywhere that I just KNEW we were going to crash into.

I think the food had been left out since lunch and was dried out and unappetizing.  But we were not up to leaving and trying to find someplace else, so we choked it down and prayed that we wouldn’t get food poisoning.

Ron and I both feel that we wouldn’t have survived the ordeal if we had had to cope with having Sheba along.  It was so special just having our little buddy Sunny with us.  We realize what a huge mistake it was to get Sheba, and are seriously going to find her a good home as soon as possible.

Propane tank damage to bumper

So tonight we are exhausted, but so relieved to be cozied up in our little Casita.  We’ll head home tomorrow and take the truck in for the insurance estimate as soon as we can get an appointment.

The Casita belly band dings — the only real damage to the Casita