Parking the Trailer and Staying Married

If you’re looking for sage marital advice, you’ve chosen the wrong blog.  This is literally meant to be a post about how to park a trailer or RV with another person and being OK with being inside of the rig together once it’s parked.  Parking the rig can be the most stressful part of the whole trip.  If you don’t have a trailer, maybe it’ll be of some help, but it’ll probably just be a little amusing.  

We bought our first trailer in 2004.  That’s when cell phone service was nickel and diming everyone by the minute and service was spotty.  It’s important to keep that in mind when you’re reading this as you’ll wonder why in the heck we didn’t use modern conveniences.  We did! They just weren’t 2019 modern.  When we first got our trailer, we realized that we’d have to leave after work and that we’d get to our campsites late and we wanted to be quiet about it.  So, instead of rolling down the window and having me yell which way to turn, we decided to get walkie talkies and some flashlights that had a glow stick feature on the end. That way, I could talk to my husband while he backed the trailer and point to where he needed to go with the glow stick – flashlight.  This would help us do this task more quietly.  It turns out that was pretty genius.  What we discovered by not yelling was, it kept the tension down.  I won’t lie and say it was a blissful perfect backing situation.  It kept the tension to a minimum.  Yelling tends to cause a rise in tension.  Anyone who has kids already knows this.

Another thing we had to learn was to speak the same trailer backing language.  That took years to master!  I think after 15 years at it, he understands me even though I’m not using the language he would choose.  I say things like, “The butt of the trailer needs to go more toward the driver’s side.” I also say, “Looks good enough for government work!”  and “It’ll be fine!”  That’s not something you should say when the person backing the trailer is an engineer and wants everything lined up straight and perfect!

Here are two trailer backing stories for you – the best experience, and the funniest.  Neither of these experiences involve me on backing communications. I was on Kid-Patrol.  

First,  the best experience.  After a super long day on the road between Redding, CA and San Diego, CA (I think this is the trip where we invented the 8:00 rule), we arrived at our campground exhausted.  If I drove at all, it was probably for no more than an hour.  He was seriously tired of driving and hungry.  San Diego camp grounds are kind of party places.  It’s warm at night and people sit outside of their rigs enjoying the evening. Thank goodness our next-door neighbors were doing just that. The neighbor got out of his seat, walked up to my husband’s window which was rolled down and offered to back him in.  Our camping neighbor got him in one attempt.  No jockeying back and forth.  No pulling out and starting over.  One perfect trip into the spot.  It turns out, our neighbor was a long-haul trucker and was the perfect backing coach! My husband will tell you that to this day, that was the best trailer backing experience he’s ever had.  

Now, the funniest experience. We arrived at a state park campground where we were meeting some friends.  They were, of course, much more organized than we were and got there a couple hours before us and were all set up.  When we arrived, it was dark, the kids needed to stretch their legs, and the dogs needed to be walked.  Not to mention, it was after a full day of work and however long it took us to pack up and go.  Our friend, Mike, offered to back my husband in so I could be on Kid-Patrol.  My husband told me to let him do it because “guys speak the same trailer backing language.”  Our friend, Mike, is an FBI (Full Blooded Italian) from Queens, NY, so he’s really good at yelling, speaking with enthusiasm, and hand gestures. He’s very entertaining!  He didn’t use the walkie talkie.  It wasn’t necessary.  He got my husband all backed in and after putting down the jacks, pulling out the rear slide, and hooking up the electricity so I could start dinner, my husband started hooking everything eles up.  When it came time to put the sewer hose in the receptacle in the ground, he couldn’t find it.  It turns out, Mike had him parked with the wheels right on top of the sewer receptacle! Of course, that was discovered after I had set up the inside, started dinner, and the jacks were down.  It was decided that we would move the trailer in the morning.  Mike left a note on a post-it about “Mike’s trailer moving service” that we have in our trailer to this day (we moved it into the new trailer).  We’re getting worried about it and I’m thinking I’ll frame it.  It’s such a funny memory!

Here are some things that we learned in our backing communication that I hope can be a help to you:

1. Before we even begin backing, he gets out of the car and walks around the area where we’ll park. He checks out where the sewer hook-up is, where the electrical is, low hanging branches, etc.
2. Once he’s surveyed the situation, I get briefed.  He’ll tell me, “We need to line up pretty much perfectly so the sewer line is in line with the sewer hook-up spot.”  Or “You need to be looking out for that branch so I don’t hit it.”
3. Back in the day, we would use walkie talkies.  Now, I call him on my cell and he has a hands free blue-tooth hook up in his truck.  It works so much better than walkie talkies.  I then, talk him back into the spot using my un-couth trailer backing language.
4. Once we think it’s close, he gets out and checks everything out to make sure it’s going to work, that the slides will come out without running into anything, etc.
5. Before un-hitching, walk all the way around the trailer and make sure everything is going to work.  Don’t just look at the hook-up side. 

By now, you might be wondering about the feature photo for this blog.  That was our last camping trip.  Yep, after 15 years, we’re still screwing up!  We had driven in traffic and it took us longer than expected to get to our campsite. We were considering invoking the 8:00 Rule, but there were no restaurants around the camp ground and we packed food to make for dinner.  We could make it.   We did a great job backing the trailer, lining up the sewer stuff, making sure we could get the slides out, etc.  One thing we forgot – walk all the way around the trailer.  As it turns out, the other side of the trailer hung over a little hill that sloped steeply down.  The jack couldn’t reach the ground!  My engineer husband Macgyvered that set up.  As it turns out, it was surprisingly stable and held for the entire weekend.

Here’s the best piece of advice for staying married, friends, whatever while backing a trailer – have a sense of humor.  Don’t let the stress of getting parked ruin a trip.  Also … it wouldn’t hurt if you’re buying a new rig and a backup camera is an option to get one.  We don’t have one and we’re still at it after 15 years. There are T-Shirts for this that say, “I’m sorry for what I said when I was parking the camper.” That’s because it’s a challenge that needs to be met with humor.

I hope that’s helped. If it didn’t help, I hope it at least entertained you a bit.  I’d love to know what you’d like to read about.  If you have something you’d like to hear someone else’s experience about, I’d love if you’d leave a comment.  If I have an experience with your topic that is blog worthy, I’ll write about it!  For now, thanks for reading!

Next Trailer Girl Blog – 40 Acres and Why You NeedIt