TRF

I've been at TRF for three weeks now, and we've had two excellent weekends thus far. For the duration of the show I am living in the same trailer I wintered in last year (bonus! Hardly had to clean it at all!). I've picked up a second job for the run of the show, paying off my rent by working at Rio's on the weekends. It makes my weekends a bit harder, as I work 34 hours in 2.5 days - 14 hours Sat/Sun, 6 hours Mon morning - but I'll even have some extra funds by the end of the run, and will make a nice dent in my 5th wheel fund.

I just realized how much new music I've bought this year. Edge of Dawn, Rotersand, Faderhead, the industrial music to cure cancer compilation, some misc tracks by VAC and Tricky Pixie. Sure, it's not a lot, but I'm glad to be supporting these awesome artists, esp since the odds of my seeing them on tour is pretty slim. I am looking forward to seeing Aesthetic Perfection in Austin in two weeks, and buying their new CD from them then.

5th wheel research

I've spent much of the day trying to research my future house. Of course, I need to figure out what I can haul around with my truck, which isn't as easy as I could have thought. On the inside of my door it says I have a GVWR of 8800 lbs and a rear GAWR of 6084 lbs, but I haven't found where it says how much I can haul in total (GCWR), truck plus 5th wheel. Looking around online, I've seen assorted numbers between 13.6k and 16k, so I might just have to go with that. And of course, I don't even know how much my truck weighs by itself, so I can't figure out the payload yet. Again, assorted places online lead me to think my payload may be around 2000 lbs, but I'll have find some scales before I know with certainty.

It has been reassuring to find a few posts from people who say that going a thousand or so pounds over isn't bad, 5000 is, so I feel like I have a little leeway, but I rather imagine that the reason why my rear brakes were gauged is because the prior owners towed too much.

So, with guesstimates of truck weight 6800 lbs and GCWR of 13600, that would leave me towing a trailer weighing 6800 lbs. Excluding the weight of my personal belongings, fluids, batteries and the like, that probably leaves me looking for a trailer with a dry weight of 4000 lbs or so. And considering that the lightest 25' 5th wheel with a slide out I've seen so far weighs 5000 lbs, well, maybe I won't be getting that slide out after all. Not a tragedy, it's just one more thing to break, but still.