Our Travel Trailer is back! I left at about 7:30 AM to drive about 80 miles to the dealership to pick it up yesterday. I am wondering now what the point is of making a list is at the dealership, if you get it home and something was completely missed. The item was not a big deal, it’s something that I added at the last minute and something I can do myself anyway, but this is a common theme at most RV dealerships.

I should have noticed when I picked it up but even if I had, there is no way I was going to wait for them to tackle it. Tammy’s leaving for Wisconsin this week and will be gone for a month, and I wanted to get it back home and on the pad while she was still there to help me. I can put it on there myself but it takes a lot of in-and-out of the truck to get things lined up perfectly.

To understand why I took the trailer to the dealership, we need to dial the clock back to October of last year; when I cleaned it for the last time before parking it under the overhang for the winter. Keep in mind, I wash the roof and the entire trailer after every trip. If I notice anything at all, I take care of it immediately. So it was a surprise for me in February when I suddenly noticed a mark next to the rear window.

When I looked at the mark, it appeared to be a crack coming from the corner of the window and extending about 3″ out. I took a picture of it, and it sure looked like a crack to me. Of course, you see something like that and you thing, now what!

What is that?!!!
What is that?!!!

I knew for a fact that mark was not there when I washed the trailer. So it seemed this was something that had happened spontaneously while the trailer was just sitting on the pad. So, I put a bead of silicone across it as a precaution because we were heading to Daingerfield State Park. There is absolutely no reason to take any chances with water intrusion.

As soon as we got back we dropped it off at the dealerships body shop. I expected that this job would take a while but I was wrong. About a week later I received a message from body shop manager telling me it was not a crack. It was just some sort of minor mar on the Gel-coat which easily rubbed out. I was so certain that it was a crack, I asked if they were looking at the correct window. He then sent a picture of the window after they rubbed out the mark.

I’m still puzzled about how something that could look so much like a crack would end up being a simple gel-coat blemish. I guess even more puzzling is how it got there. Although, our shop does have a ton of birds (Sparrows, Doves, and Swallows) trying to nest on and around it. As a result we have recently found a few dead birds next to the trailer; so perhaps one glanced off the rear of the trailer…who knows!

Anyway, the long and the short of the story is the trailer is back. It’s back just in time for the next two days of, according to weather.com, “Drenching Rains”. I’ve never seen that warning before…here we go again.

Here’s hoping for dryer weather soon!