We are parked under an ole oak tree at the Mercer County Fairgrounds, and yea, I am a bit concerned with Mother Nature's windy fits. That said, we do have a nice campsite, along the road, 30 AMPS, and very close to the buildings.
Last evening, Nick Russell, the Gypsy himself, had an open forum Q & A session. One of the questions asked was how to get INTO a locked unit when the keys are MIA. Some of the answers were
1.) Be sure to do a slow walk around to see if you can find any open windows.
2.) Ask around for keys from other rig owners, someone just might have a match.
3.) Bust out a window.
4.) Hide an extra key in your tow vehicle or toad vehicle.
Being locked out always brings to mind our experiences with doors and/or locks. Two times the OEM door handles to the little necessary room have jammed. Luckily both times there were no occupants of said room. So, we could take our time jimmying open that door. Took well over 30 minutes each time and we no longer have OEM handles on that door.
The other experiences have to do with the entrance door lock, again, two failures. Each time we were IN the unit. And, could not get out! One experience was in New Orleans, the other was in Hope Arkansas.
So, HOW do you get OUT of a rig when the door lock mechanism fails?? Here is part of the story, from my old web pages. (No URL will be given, as these web pages will soon go to geocities heaven, I am looking for a new home for them.) There is a LOT more to this story, stuff about cabinets being open from I-10 and Moi climbing over tables. But here is how we got out.
"We try to go outside to finish setting up. Now mind you, 3 of the dogs are in the truck, as is my purse, computer, camera and other stuff. The truck is not locked! We cannot get OUT of the trailer. The door handle is broken. We are locked IN the trailer.
We put the slides back in, thinking that possibly, the door is jammed somehow. Nope, that did not help.
We open the emergency window behind the couch to note that to jump out we would land on the sewer hose and that it is a really long drop and that unless the 5er is burning, we really don’t want to JUMP! UGH.
Next, Man asks me, do you have the cell phone, we can call the office. Well, yes, I have the cell phone, but the phone number is IN the truck!
So, running out of options, we creatively (?) decide to set off the alarm on the truck. I do have my truck keys in my pocket. And, that is exactly what we do. We set the alarm off several times until the owner of the campground came over to investigate.
Man explained the situation, and the owner gently, but easily opened the door from the outside. Yes, HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF goes here."
Lots of possible lessons to learn from this experience. One might be, with your cell phone, call that campground in the 24 hours prior to arrival, and the phone number should be saved as a recently called number.
I'll save the Hope Arkansas story for another day, right now, seminars await!
Rally on!
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