If you haven’t heard about hurricane Irene and live in the USA, you’re probably living under a rock. It’s one of the biggest hurricanes to hit the East-North East coast in a great many years. And it decided to happen right when our beautiful trailer had a gaping hole on its port side. Now we could just have boarded the hole with cardboard and tape, or covered the whole trailer with a tarp, except the very center of Irene was supposed to be going right through where we live (Pelham, NY) – and there’s quite a few trees around here! So we had to move the trailer to a safer place (it’s not insured yet… we tried to insure it but the insurance companies wouldn’t insure it before after the storm had passed). It was actually not a bad thing as we wanted to take it out and test most of the systems before setting sail in September. If it hadn’t been for the hole in the frame, it would have been no problem.

The only way we could think of securing that hole for the time being was to put a piece of cardboard in the frame where the heater is supposed to be and cover the whole area with a trash bag taped to the side (very ghetto). So a few hours later, with our seal of fortune, we’re then on our way: West it is! We drove to Binghamton, NY which seemed to be far enough to be on the safe side (rain but no storm conditions). We hooked the trailer up for the first time in an RV campground and everything was working (except of course the water heater… you can (re)read part I if you don’t know why…)

Now it’s Sunday evening, we’re on our way back to Pelham, the trash bag didn’t hold so we’ve already stopped twice to add duct tape and stick a towel behind the bag to absorb as much water as possible (it’s still raining), and we’re hungry! But, the trailer is safe, and so are we!

Stay tuned for the next part in our pre-flight series!