When tragedy struck…
After leaving Tahoe, we headed for Mesquite, NV where Ben would complete his first gig on this new adventure. We would also get to meet up with some friends that we had met in Glacier who now lived there. It was amazing to catch up after not seeing each other since we bumped into them in Grand Tetons and had an impromptu reunion.
The next stop along the way was Tucson where Ben would be working at another RV rally. We had a better idea of what to expect this time and really enjoyed ourselves while we were there. From there, we were headed to New Mexico as we wanted to explore some areas and take a route that we were not as familiar with as I-80. We spent some time hopping from state park to state park in New Mexico, making use of the yearly camping pass we had purchased. It allowed us to see some very beautiful dessert landscapes and do some exploring along Route 66 that we had missed in the past due to the truck breaking down in Season 2. From there we were headed through Texas and Oklahoma and up to Missouri where we would stay about a week and meet up with some friends in the Kansas City area. While wee were in Oklahoma, we had been watching the weather and they were calling for severe thunderstorms and tornado warnings in the coming days. Watching the storm patch we decided to speed up our trip and get to Missouri earlier than planned to try to avoid the storms. Ultimately, we were headed to Indiana for Ben’s month long gig there before we were due at his work camping job.
We would be staying in the same campground north of Kansas City that we had stayed in many times before. We made plans to meet up with our friends who live just north of Kansas City, MO as well as our friends who live just south of Kansas City, MO and found out that friends we had met in the campground we would be staying in also happened to be arriving the day after us and we looked forward to visiting with them. On our way in, we decided to stop and get groceries that way the next day we could settle in and work. Watching the weather, we found out the the storm we had been trying to avoid had shifted and would be headed right over us. They were predicting for us to get severe thunder storms and tornadoes. Having this knowledge, we took the day to prep, we walked up to the bathrooms, which were the storm shelter, so that we would know the escape route if the time came. We also hooked the truck up to the fifth wheel in the hopes that if we got strong winds, the weight of the truck would help to keep the fifth wheel from getting blown over.
The next morning came and we did have high winds. We had the live weather streaming, local weather on the TV, and were frequently checking our phones for warnings and to look at the radar while we were working on the computers. We were under a Tornado watch. We got to a point in the morning were everything indicated we were going to have a lull in the storm and the wind did die down a bit but we were still under a tornado watch. We decided to take a break from the TV and streaming and shut them off for about 10 minutes. Suddenly, both of our phones went off with a Tornado warning alarm. Ben said turn the TV back on, I turned it on and confirmed we needed to get to shelter. We were both headed for the door when that first big gust of wind hit. It shook the trailer violently and threw us both off balance. Ben yelled, get your shoes on lets go. But, it was too late, the trailer was rocking violently and without saying it, we both knew it was too late and we were going to have to ride out the storm where we were. Ben in the living room and myself in the hallway to the bedroom. In the next moment, I heard a loud bang and the sound of glass shattering. Just like that, it felt like we not longer had the protection of the structure around us. The wind was blowing violently, I could feel the particles of glass hitting me and the wind blowing my tee shirt up to expose me to the wind water and glass. The pressure of the wind coming in through the broken windows opened up all of the crank out windows in the living room below. All the while the fifth wheel was rocking and shuddering violently. Ben had been knocked over and was clinging to the recliner facing backwards in the chair and watching mass amounts of water hit the window. So much so, he felt as if he was in an aquarium. The wind calmed just enough that Ben was able to get to me in the hallway and we both went into the bathroom (as if our fifth wheel bathroom was going to be any safer than any other part of the trailer). Without speaking both of us looked at each other and went back into the hallway. We had both realized that if the fifth wheel were to tip over, the contents of the black and gray tanks would be coming back up. By the time we got back into the hallway, the wind had died down and the rain had stopped, the sky had turned blue again.
Ben ran up into the bedroom and said, we lost the fifth wheel, we lost our home, we lost the fifth wheel. I was still too shaken to even speak. The tornado sirens were still going off in the campground. We decided to get our shoes on and go up to the shelter. We found the grounds crew who not moments before the storm hit had been out mowing the grass. They said, they saw the sky change and just barely had time to make it to shelter themselves. We all stood around the shelter for a few minutes. At this moment, I realized I had just left my laptop open during all of this and was still supposed to be working. Up until this point I had been calm and collected. I decided I needed to call my boss to let her know what happened and that I did not know when I would be able to return to work. It was then, the moment I first had to voice that we had lost our home, that I broke down into tears and the kindness and empathy that she showed me left me unable to get the words out. Ben had a similar experience talking to his boss whom he had to tell that we may not make it to the job we were supposed to be at in Indiana.
We talked with the grounds crew for a few minutes and told them that we had been in the trailer when the storm went by. One guy said ‘well it looks like your trailer is okay.’ We replied, that a picnic table had gone through the window on the other side that you could not see from where we were standing. Immediately, everyone started to walk towards the fifth wheel to see the damage. As we walked, we saw the mangled picnic table and found the frame to the window that was now missing from our home, it was warped, you could see where something had punctured the frame edge, and there were still shards of glass clinging to the edges. As we got closer we could now see that the shroud for the air conditioner on the roof was missing. This was the longest we had looked at it since it happened. Not only had the window frame been ripped out of the wall, there was a hole in the side wall of the RV and you could see where aluminum structure within the wall had been punctured to the inside of the RV. The roof had also been punctured and you could see exposed wiring.
The grounds crew then suggested that we get what we needed out of the fifth wheel and move somewhere safer. The weather was still volatile and there was a chance there could be another tornado. I went inside to gather what we would need and all of our important paperwork. As I walked into the bedroom, everything was wet and covered in glass. I saw that when the picnic table punctured the wall, it ripped my closet door off and broke the frame for the closet. I could see daylight coming through the closet wall. There were splinters and debris from the wall embedded in my clothes. The scariest part was that I had been standing in the bedroom moments before the window was blown out.
Once I had everything, we unhooked the truck from the trailer and we sat in the truck for a moment trying to figure out what we were going to do next. At this point I realized I had been limping and I thought I had something stuck in my foot. It turned out I had a shard of glass in my foot. Ben went back in the trailer to get the hydrogen peroxide and a pair of tweezers. I pulled the piece of glass out of my foot and felt instant relief. The other thing we realized after sitting down for a moment was that we needed to call our parents to let them know what happened and that we were all right.
We then went to the other loop in the campground where our friends were staying to see how they had weathered the storm. They had also been caught in their motor-home and had to ride it out in there. Luckily, they did not sustain any damage. They told us they had seen the funnel come down in the loop that we were in and watched it go by where they were staying. They offered their help if we needed it for which we were very grateful.
We covered the hole in the side of the rig the best we could with garbage bags and duct tape as there was more rain on the way. We weren’t sure when to go and decided to move the truck up to the bathrooms so that if need be we could get into the shelter quickly. We felt so fortunate that while we had lost the fifth wheel, the track had made it through relatively unscathed. While we were sitting there, I called the insurance company and opened the claim. The adjuster called us back quickly and said that we could speed up the process by uploading pictures to the claim online. I had been taking lots of pictures as we discovered damage and said I would upload them right away. After uploading them, we received a call from a second adjuster who told us that he would have to fill out all of the paperwork but preliminarily, he said the fifth wheel would be totaled. We knew this was probably the case but it didn’t make hearing it out loud any less devastating.
It was getting late in the day and we needed to leave for the night. Our friends south of Kansas City offered for us to stay in their guest room which we graciously accepted. We didn’t feel staying by ourselves in a hotel room was going to be good for our mental states. We visited with our friends and regaled them with the tale of what had happened. The news that night confirmed that what we had experienced was an EF-1 Tornado. When we went to bed that night I could not wait to take a shower. I felt dirty and still wind blown. As I showered I felt the glass still in my hair and on my scalp. We both laid down but neither of us slept very much that night. Maybe a few hours. It was windy and that was causing anxiety as well as the questions swirling in our heads of what are we going to do now. We decided that at the very least we need to get a u-haul trailer and salvage what we could out of the fifth wheel. The next morning we rented a u-haul trailer, bought boxes and bubble wrap and headed back to the campground to start packing.
Our friends staying in the campground were a tremendous help with packing boxes and helping to keep our spirits up. We would stay late into the evening packing. The next day we would finish packing our things and then we would move the boxes into our friends garage north of Kansas City while we figured out what we were going to do next. The towing company would be picking up the fifth wheel the next day and we opted to stay in a hotel for the night near the campground so that we could be there when they picked it up. Both nights we had also been looking for used trailers online since we had not been able to sleep and had emailed about a few but not gotten a response back. The towing company called early in the morning to let us know that he was on his way to collect the fifth wheel so we packed up our things from the hotel and met him at the campground.
I cannot describe the emotion of watching our home that we had worked so hard on being driven away behind a tow truck and knowing that we would never see it again. We were now officially homeless.
We visited with our friends in the campground for a bit and thanked them again for all of their help. By then we were starving and went to go get brunch and figure out what our next move was. We decided to go to an RV dealership to see what they had but for many reasons, buying an RV there was not going to work out. We were getting back into the truck at the dealership and were about to give up on getting another trailer when we received an email response to one of the Craigslist ads we had inquired about. He was located south of Kansas City and was available for us to come by and see it. As soon as we saw it, we both knew it was the answer to our problem. We agreed to buy it and asked if we could pick it up the next day. It was all a go and things seemed to be falling into place. We stayed with our friends south of Kansas City that night and were excited to tell them that we had found a new home and were going to pick it up the next day.
After picking up the fifth wheel, we took it straight to a tire shop as we knew it needed new tires. We also needed to go purchase bedding an pillows, so we stopped a Target to pick up the essentials we were missing and then headed to our friends’ house north of Kansas City where we would stay in their driveway with the new fifth wheel and move into it. By the time we got there, it was late and we would park on the street, make the bed and call it a night. They would help us to clean and move into our new home over the next two days. Then it was time to get on the road so that we would make it on time for Ben’s job in Indiana.
We felt blessed for so many things. Our first night out we boondocked and it felt like we had some sort of normalcy back in our lives even though we were far from it. When we got to Indiana we knew we would be there for a month and we were glad to stay put for a little while. We had to give up the work camping job we had lined up for the summer because it was too far from town and this new fifth wheel was not set up for us to be living that rural. So, here we were not sure of when we were going to go when the job in Indiana was finished. And, we were struggling to work out the issues with our new fifth wheel and how to deal with the loss of our home and ease of living we had become accustomed to. We also had several storms and tornadoes touch down not far from us while we were in Indiana which was creating anxiety and we were not recovering well from what had happened. We did take advantage of being in the RV capital of the US and started purchasing items that we thought we would like to upgrade or replace in this trailer from RV surplus stores. We were not able to install them right away but for the deals we were finding, figured we could store the items until we got somewhere we could install them. We also made a deal that we would live in the fifth wheel for a month before we put any holes in it.
A friend from Medora called Ben and asked what our plan was next. We shared that we had one month open and we were not sure what we were going to do with that time. He said we should come back to Medora and practically negotiated the job for Ben. We decided to go there for the month to be with friends and hopefully get away from the bad weather that we seemed to keep finding ourselves in. We could not believe we would be going back to Medora for a third year in a row. While we were glad to be amongst friends who were very understanding that we were not at our best, we were not avoiding the bad weather. We had several tornado watches while we were there, high winds and one night watched the beginnings of a funnel form. Since February, we had been in the worst weather in the country and it was now June.
After Ben’s contract in Medora was up, we would be headed to California for Ben’s Grandmother’s 90th birthday and to make some modifications to our new home. We had started a few in Medora but we were now ready to tackle some bigger projects. On the way we made a quick stop in Billings, MT to see Ben’s cousin. We also stopped in Reno to see Ben’s family and just happened to arrive on the 4th of July. We were invited to go with his aunt and uncle to see the fireworks that would be set off the top of the Nugget casino towers. It was an impressive 45 minute display. It was some much needed fun.
When we arrived in California we would get right to work. We were going to rebuild the kitchen and change out the heater and water heater for our diesel system from the old fifth wheel. We realized that the propane and the kitchen configuration was just not going to work for us.
We also attended the 90th Birthday party for Ben’s Grandmother which was a wonderful event where he got to catch up with a lot of his family that had not been together in a long time.
We were supposed to leave for Oregon after the birthday party but the gig that Ben had up there fell through and the next gig in New Mexico was not looking that promising. Ben was going to have to find another work camping job for the fall to keep us from loosing any more of our savings. We had stayed in California much longer than we had intended but it had been healing. We had wonderful, supportive friends that we were staying with, we were able to make our living situation easier, and the weather had been the best we had been in since January. Ben found a job that was for the fall season and we felt very fortunate as it was not very far away. However, it was in a semi remote location and we realized that the propane refrigerator whose size meant we needed to go to the grocery store weekly was not going to work with this job. So, at the last minute, before we left, we pulled out the propane refrigerator and put in a 120v refrigerator. This meant, once again we had a diesel and electric powered fifth wheel. Happy with the changes we made, we were ready to get on the road again and hoped for a better experience in Season 19.