My RV almost killed me

Moving day is always interesting.

Whether you're moving 400 miles or 400 feet further up the mountain, it can be an ordeal. Actually, I moved about half a mile, but I'm 400 feet higher in elevation now. I'm in Banner Elk, NC in Grandfather Campground just below 4,000 feet.

I was down at the bottom of the campground beside the river. The sound of the river was nice, but the view up here is a lot better. I guess no site is perfect.

Here's a picture of where I'm parked now.

I'll be in this campsite until I head to Florida on Nov. 30th. Hopefully, I won't see any snow before I leave, but I wouldn't count on it.

My brother lives just over the mountain about 70 miles away in Black Mountain, NC. I want to stay in this area until after Thanksgiving instead of heading to Florida now.

When I said that my brother lives just over the mountain, everywhere you go around here you have to go over a mountain. You can't go to the grocery store without going over a mountain or two.

I like to drive the motorhome every few weeks

Even when I'm staying in one campground for a while, I like to crank up the motorhome and drive it for at least 30 minutes every few weeks. It's good for the engine, transmission, and the tires.

Since I was cranking up and moving, I did run some errands. I took the motorhome over the mountain about 10 miles and filled it up with propane. Since I had put new tires on the motorhome a few weeks ago, I wanted to have the lug nuts retorqued after driving it about 100 miles or so. I found a tire shop that could do that for me.

I'm sure glad I did. Most of the lug nuts were torqued at about 100 pounds, which is normal for a car, but the specs on my motorhome call for torquing the lug nuts at 165 pounds.

I guess that's not a big deal, but what was a big deal is that I found that the lug nuts on my right rear wheel were literally finger tight. That's right. I could turn them with my fingers. It looks like they just forgot to tighten the lug nuts on that wheel when they put the new tires on.

Driving through these mountains with a wheel that was about to come off is not a pleasant thought.

If my wheel had come off while I was driving through these mountains, a picture of my motorhome would likely look a lot different from the one shown earlier in this article. I doubt if you could have a wheel come off of a motorhome in these mountains and live to tell about it.

Bottom line: With an RV you need to constantly be checking things. Check tire pressure, fluid levels, check for water leaks, and the list goes on and on. It's just part of the RV life. Maybe you don't need to constantly be checking the torque on your lug nuts, but it sure won't hurt to check them shortly after having new tires put on.