Our RV Camping Trip to Montague, Michigan: Part 1 - Getting There is Half the Fun

The spare tire with new lug nuts and bolts on the left, and the
old tire, with its ripped-apart rim and grease mess on the right.

Part I - Getting There is Half the Fun

Last weekend we took a camping trip to Montague, Michigan and it was filled with Danger, Excessive Heat & Humidity, and a Healthy Dose of WWII History.

The danger? A wheel came off our camper while we on the highway. Literally.

The main reason for the camping trip was to pick up our son, Lucas, from Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. He had spent the previous 10 days at this wonderful camp, staying with fellow middle schoolers at Camp Bernstein where he practiced, practiced and practiced his trumpet all day everyday. Besides music, Blue Lake also offers programs for theater, dance, song, visual arts and probably a few other things I don't know about. Luke's final assessment was that he thoroughly enjoyed himself, learned a lot, made many new friends and wished the food was better and more plentiful.

But we weren't going to be getting Luke until Sunday morning. We spent Saturday driving what was supposed to be just a 3.5-hour trip from our home to the campground, White River RV Park & Campground, in Montague.

I say it was supposed to be a 3.5-hour trip because it actually took us 5.5 hours. This is where the danger part of our weekend came into play. We were barely into our trip - just 20 miles on the highway, when I felt a slight tug from the camper. It was such a small tug I was the only one who felt it, but it was enough for me to immediately check the mirrors. You can imagine my shock, horror and absolute disbelief when  I saw one of my camper's wheels careening down the highway in the fast lane.

There are few other things that would be worse than to see one of your camper's wheels, no longer attached, trying to pass you on the highway.

"Oh #@%! One of our wheels came off the camper," I believe I said.

"What?!" my wife replied, thinking/hoping this was another one of my bad jokes.

"When's lunch?" my youngest son, Ben, chimed in.

Fortunately, we have a tandem axle and the remaining wheel carried the weight of the camper. Just as good was that the camper never felt like it was going to lose control. I think our Equal-i-zer sway control system might have a whole lot to do with that.

So I was able to bring her over to the side of the highway -- U.S. 23, between Dundee to the south and Milan to the north. As we were stopping, our runaway tire came to a stop in the ditch to our right, not far from us. So we crossed through some high weeds, stepped over the dry ditch bottom and was amazed at what I saw.

The tire's rim had been sheered open like a can opener. Where there should have been five holes for the bolts was simply shredded beyond belief. Regardless, I picked it up and carried it back to the Trailblazer. Although the rim was toast, the tire was a Goodyear Marathon with less than two years of use. I'll simply get a new rim and it'll be good to go.

What wasn't good to go, though, was the wheel drum back on the camper. The bolts had been sheered right off. The metal cap that keeps the grease inside for the wheel bearings also was gone, but that hardly compared to not having bolts. I had a spare tire ready, willing and able, but no bolts meant our little trip now had a significant delay, if not an outright cancellation.

What happened next saved our trip. I unhitched, removed the wheel drum and took it, the spare tire and the tire with the can-opener rim with us to find a business that could possibly be of help. We found exactly that at M-50 Auto, Truck & Tractor in Dundee, just a stone's throw west of the big Cabelas store. The store is a Napa auto parts retailer, and Brad Smith, one of the employees, took care of me. He cross-referenced and found the replacement bolts, pounded out the old ones from the drum, installed the new ones, outfitted me with the right lug nuts and threw in a few cotter pins so my wheel bearing assembly would work out. All for less than $20.

We drove back to our camper, which was patiently waiting for us on the side of the highway. I put the drum back on, put the spare tire on, hitched back up and we were on our way again. We stopped at the next exit, where I bought a new wheel for $100 from D.R. Trailer Sales in Milan, which is my new spare tire. I wanted to have a new spare for the rest of our trip.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We rolled into White River RV Park & Campground at about 6 p.m., a full two hours later than what we were supposed to. No matter, we were there, in one piece, and the rest of the weekend was when all the real fun was to begin.

Side note: near as I can figure, the bolts were sheared off because I either tightened the lug nuts too much when I repacked grease into the wheel bearings earlier this spring, or I didn't tighten them all evenly. Or maybe the bolts were at the end of their life? Who knows.

I do know this: replacing a tire on the side of the highway is not for the weak-hearted.

Coming next: Part II - White River, Blue Lake, Silversides and GVSU