Vivian’s badly damaged tires, baked by the sun for the better part of a decade, prompted our first outing with the ol’ girl. I made an appointment for her at The Tire Factory in Eugene, just a few short blocks away. The tires couldn't have stood much more. When we brought her home from the storage lot, I basically hung out the window to stare at the tires in motion. Between Charlene, Mick, and I, there was very little confidence that they would hold up long enough to get her moved.
The Tire Factory is on the corner of a very busy street in Eugene, Chambers and 6th Ave. The bays for tire replacement face a narrow street and the entrance to the lot is bordered with very steep embankments. Seems like bad planning for a vehicle service center. We had never backed Vivian up before, aside from the easy sweep into where she was parked.
Someone told me one time, “the true test of a marriage is when you are trying to back up a trailer into a campsite at night, if you stay married it’s true love.” I laughed at this and brushed it off, however I'm pretty sure this statement has some truth to it. No amount of screaming at each other gets you closer to your end goal. The steep embankments allowed for some gut wrenching scraping of the belly pans, and the bay closest to the side of the building was our end goal. Mick jack-knifed the trailer, but good thing we have additional bumpers on the tongue side, and any damage was absorbed by them. With a near miss to the side of the building, and a couple trips around the block, we finally got her parked in the bay.
Even though our Airstream is rated for 6-8 ply tires, we went with 10 ply, not knowing how much weight we would add during our remodel. So, with four brand new tires, we brought her back home.
