Ground Crew

The Importance of the Ground Crew;

Hey guys welcome to WISH RRV. My husband, “Andy” and I want to share our recent experience with our RV, “Ruby Jewel” our 2017 Phaeton by Tiffin.

We live in the Sierra Foothills, where we keep our RV on our property (at least until we go full time) this last winter we had several wind events during storms. Near the RV pad there are several large Oak trees, and we were concerned with one falling on Ruby Jewel. We decided to move her to a “safer” location on the property where if we lost a tree it couldn’t hit her.

Here is where it gets wonky. The wind event was over, Andy wanted to move her back to the RV pad to plug her back in to electrical service. The problem was, I was up to my elbows cooking dinner and Andy had just put steaks on the grill. Instead of me offering to help after dinner when Andy said he was going to move the RV, I said “OK but hurry steaks are on the grill.”

Before I go any further I want to point out, Andy had his class A commercial license for several years and I still have my class A commercial license where I’m a long haul truck driver. So I should not have put pressure on Andy to move a 41 foot long 37,000 lb rig in a hurry. And furthermore, I should have dropped what I was doing to fulfill my role as Ground Crew. Consequently, Andy’s hurried state he failed to take a right hand turn wide enough to avoid the embankment of the circular driveway and drug the last three baggage compartments on the passenger side.

In the twenty eight years of knowing this level headed, cool as a cucumber under extreme situations I have never seen him this mad or upset. I thought the door to the garage was going to fall off the hinges from slamming it so hard. I obviously had no idea what was wrong as I was so busy with dinner prep. I was trying to get him to spit it out but he was speechless. He just took my hand and walked me to the RV. Apologizing saying he wrecked our RV. I looked at the damage knowing it was several thousand dollars of damage but with how upset he was I couldn’t be upset as well.

As calm as I could I said “It is what it is, stop beating yourself up and fix it like it never happened.

Accident’s happen but most can be avoided by having your Ground Crew in place. If you are a loan wolf RV’er use what SOLO truck drivers use, G.O.A.L. which means Get Out And Look.

The good news, Andy took Ruby Jewel to Red Bay, Alabama for repairs and while he was there he met a lot of nice people we now call friends.

Enjoy the Ride

Bell