The maiden voyage of the new Airstream was not without incident.

The plan was to depart Sunday for two nights at Redfish Lake and then relocate for two nights at Stanley Lake. Despite having towed the trailer all the way down from Spokane this was to be our first actual camping trip with the vehicle. I was nervous.

The first two nights at Redfish came and went with no problems. In fact the first night was wonderful with on again-off again rain pattering on the aluminum roof. This model trailer comes with two “Fantastic Fans.” For anybody familiar with the often balky frequently broken and hard to repair skylight/vent on the VW Westfalia the “Fantastic Fan” provides endless amusement. First, they are self-opening/self-closing. Second, they have a rain sensor. Thus we now have a new way to describe the weather, “is it raining hard enough to close the vents?” “Think today will be an open-vent day?” The motorized closing mechanism is not massively over-designed and when engaged makes a distinctive noise while the hatch opens or closes. But both vents worked perfectly, opening and closing throughout the afternoon as the rain came and went. They each have their own rain sensor so they open and close independently. The rear vent seems a bit more rain-averse and tends to close first and open last. I was thinking of naming them “Spirit” and “Opportunity” after the mars rovers.

While at Redfish we took the shuttle boat to the far end of the lake and hiked back the 5 or so miles. This is the best direction to go since you get the big climb out of the way first and then enjoy a long slow descent back to the lodge, and second you don’t have to worry about catching (or missing) the boat back to the lodge.

On Tuesday morning we got up and leisurely broke camp. Annette and i worked up a series of checklists to help us avoid any costly mistakes like leaving the amusing fan vents open or possibly forgetting to latch a window and having it depart the trailer whilst underway.

We arrived at Stanley Lake and located our site, a nice level spot with good shade and view of the lake. After setting up camp and un-hitching the truck we decided to do a bit of drive. I wanted to show Annette Bear Valley where i had been earlier in the summer and then drive on to Dagger Falls. So… off we went.

After our off-road tour we arrived back at the campsite and discovered the receiver-end of our snazzy equalizer hitch was gone. I stared at the empty receiver much the same way, years earlier, i stared at the vacant parking space where my suzuki samurai only moment earlier had been parked.

After the initial shock wore off the realization of what this missing piece of equipment meant took hold. If we couldn’t find the hitch we might have to leave the trailer while we scavenged some replacement. We quickly agreed to re-trace our steps, so we repeated everything we’d just done.

On the dirt road back toward Dagger Falls, scarcely two miles in from Hwy 21, i spotted the chrome steel barrel lock lying peacefully in the middle of the road. I jumped out and collected it. It was still locked. Another mile and we found the chrome steel receiver pin also lying nonchalantly in the afternoon sun. But that was it. Continuing on revealed no hitch lying in the road or off in a ditch.

We stopped and checked in at the Stanley Ranger station. They were all sympathetic and set up calls to the other ranger districts, but nobody had called in a found hitch. They gave me some bailing wire to better secure the locking hitch pin, but that was basically all they could do.

We returned to the campsite dispirited and dreading what might come next. But as i got out of the little truck i remembered i had a spare plain ball hitch in the tiny cargo compartment behind my seat. It wasn’t the snazzy equalizer, but it was a ball on a shank and was rated for 6,000 pounds. We were saved! All i had to do was install the receiver and figure out what orientation best worked with the trailer.

After some inventive block use and up and down from the power tongue jack i learned flipping the shank so as to arrange a rise in the ball height worked best. We hitched up and headed home a day early.

The trailer towed fine. It didn’t sway at all, it didn’t sway in turns, it followed perfectly. The missing equalizer torsion bars permitted much more up-and-down movement as the trailer and the truck went over bumps, but at no time did it feel excessive. We crossed train tracks. We crossed the undulating surface of the Hwy 21 bridge over Lucky Peak reservoir.

We made it all the way home. Or just about. 100 yards from our front door, on our street, we went over a speed bump at maybe 5 mph, and heard a gut-wrenching crash and ear-splitting grinding of metal on pavement. The trailer had popped off the ball and come crashing down on the tongue jack. I jumped out of the truck and ran to the back. The tongue hadn’t touched the ground, the breakaway switch hadn’t tripped, the safety chains hadn’t been extended, but the tongue jack was bent forward at 45 degrees off vertical and the metal plate where the jack crossed the a-frame of the tongue was a trainwreck of bent metal. Again all i could do was stare while a metallic taste filled my mouth and my gut writhed.

I won’t bore you, dear reader, with the sordid details of what followed beyond saying with the help of our neighbor Ken we got the trailer back on the ball and towed it, slowly, onto the concrete of my driveway. A close inspection of the trailer revealed no damage, but the unmistakeable feeling of dread, that we’d broken something, that it would never be the same, filled both annette and myself.

That was all on Thursday. On Friday we towed the trailer to “Camping World” and met with their collision expert and my Progressive insurance rep. Only time will reveal what comes next. Will a bent tongue jack reach my $500 deductible? Will it be as easy to fix as the RV collision guy seemed to think? Will it ever work the same? Did we bend the frame? What about the equalizer hitch? Can the loss of the hitch be part of the claim? Questions questions questions.