We arrived at the Indian Waters RV Resort on Sunday after a onerous drive from Bakersfield. Our tow car, Ernie Equinox started doing the “Death Wobble” in Stockton the day before and on Sunday, after three heart pounding incidences between Bakersfield and Pasadena we called time of death, pulled over and disconnected Ernie from the Road House and we drove separately to Palm Springs.

“Death Wobble” is not something we had ever read about when researching which tow car to purchase but of course, now that we have Ernie Equinox and have spent $$ to set him up as a tow car this problem has cropped up.

So what is this “Death Wobble” you may be wondering??? It is basically Ernie Equinox not tracking correctly behind our 30,000 plus pound RV. An oscillation would occur when we hit a rough patch of road and bounced up and down. This caused Ernie to start shimming around behind us. It truly felt like we had two flat tires, the entire rig started shaking and bucking. We could see poor Ernie doing his shimmy in the rear camera. We could also see cars behind and around us getting the hell out of our way as Ernie did his sassy shimmy.

Our first reaction was WTF, we must have a flat tire (which the thought of that annoyed me greatly since we just put 6 new massive tires on the Road House). Wally was able to get our hulking mass slowed down and pulled off the freeway on the emergency shoulder where Ernie finally quit his shimmying. Luckily for us, there was an emergency shoulder when this happened – all three times on Sunday.

If that wasn’t enough, one of our awnings over the rear pop out had come loose and ripped, the wind in Riverside was gusting 30 MPH and the generator exhaust pipe came loose, was dragging on the ground just 1 mile out from the RV Resort. Seriously, we needed a big ole drinkie by the time we arrived in Palm Springs!!!

After some research on a few RV forums we learned about the what the heck was actually happening. It seems there are a few fixes for the “Death Wobble”which we will try on our upcoming trip from Palm Springs to Mesa, AZ. We did take poor Ernie into the La Quinta Chevrolet dealer for his 50K service and oil change…no surprise he needed a front end alignment too.

Otherwise, we are just chillaxing in the desert, trying to get our coach organized (yes, we have WAY to much stuff on board), doing some errands, drinking wine, trying some new restaurants and doing some bicycling, cause you can do that with a broken toe. The resort where we are for the next ten days is really lovely, very quiet and we have an amazing mountain/sunset view from inside and outside. Bentley gives it two paws up too, he loves the off leash dog park where he can chase his ball and roll in the grass.

There are several fun events coming up near by in the next ten days and we are planning to do a beef tenderloin on the traegar for Christmas. The drive to Palm Springs may have been a bust but we are really enjoying the desert warmth, exploring the area and being stationary for a while