Many, if not most, of the motor homes we see on the road are towing their cars behind them “four down” which is something you cannot do with most cars these days without either some modification or risk of damaging the car’s transmission. There are some cars, though, that are designed to be towed without damage, (especially Jeep products) and we see a lot of those. Our car is not one of them. However, being front-wheel drive, it can easily be towed “two down” on a tow dolly. This has worked very well for us but last year we had problems when one of the rims failed to hold air, stranding us in Amarillo over the weekend until we could buy a new rim. Then 500 miles later the other rim failed in the same manner. This motivated us to get a spare rim and tire before heading out this year. Our tow dolly is a Demco Kar Kaddy SS. The SS is for “Space Saver” because the ramps and the tongue fold up to half of its extended length at only 67 inches. It is a great tow dolly and other than the issue with the two bad rims it has treated us well. That is until the morning we tried to leave Durango and one of the tire straps broke as I was ratcheting it down. Since we were trying to get an early start none of the places where we hoped to find a new strap were open yet so we had to wait to start making phone calls. The first place was an RV dealer but they had no straps. Then we tried the two U-Haul dealers in town – nope. Auto parts stores? No. So we were resigned to the fact that Karen would have to drive the car to our next destination in Salt Lake City and we started calling trailer and RV stores there in hopes that we would not make a habit of towing an empty dolly. Finally an RV supply store, State Trailer who is also a Demco dealer, said they had one in stock and they were open until 7 that evening. That was double good news because we had a seven-hour drive ahead of us and since it was Saturday, if we didn’t get there in time we would be stuck until at least Monday. Well, we did get there in time and headed over to their parts department to let them know what we were there for. We were escorted over to the aisle with the towing supplies and I was happy to see they had a Kar Kaddy SS, all new and shiny on the showroom floor. That turned out to be a triple blessing because after three clerks failed to find the strap we needed and could only offer a generic strap that would not fit our trailer, we were finally able to convince the manager to sell us one of the straps off of their Kar Kaddy. Thank you, Matt and State Trailer!
Our problem was solved with enough time left in the day to go get cleaned up and head over to the other reason we travel through Salt Lake City – and that is Los Cucos Mexican Cafe in Sandy, Utah. The chips & salsa, El Texano dinner, and a la carte enchiladas were just what we needed to revive us from a long and tiring day. We weren’t sure why Karen’s two enchiladas came on two separate plates but they were delicious just the same.
Knowing that our other original tow dolly strap could fail at any time as well, I found an online source and ordered three new straps so that we would have two new ones in use on the dolly and two spares. The new straps arrived today and if we ever find ourselves in need of a spare, I just hope I will remember where I stored them.