Rocky's first boo-boo...

Well, it was bound to happen. You know the drill - you buy a new car and the day shortly arrives when you get that first door ding. A travel trailer is not prone to door dings, but there are a thousand other things that can happen. For us, Rocky's first incident was a damaged recliner. To bring the slide in requires that the two recliners be moved side by side in front of the rear entrance, behind the kitchen counter, and then strapped for travel. What I didn't consider was the movement of the trailer during travel would be rocking the recliner and causing it to rub against the kitchen cabinet. On the morning after our first day of travel, I was sitting in my recliner enjoying morning coffee and felt something strange under my fingers on the left arm of the chair. The vinyl upholstery had a hole abraded in it from the previous day's travel!

After getting past that initial sick feeling, I Googled remedies for vinyl repair. The first thing that came up in my search was Gorilla Tape, of which I just happened to have a roll in my tool bag! Gorilla Tape is duct tape on steroids and comes in basic black. Our recliners are a deep, dark brown - nearly black - so Gorilla Tape seemed a reasonable solution.  A small piece did the trick.

It remains to be seen how permanent this fix proves to be, but we used Gorilla Tape previously to cover the hole in our RPod's exterior when we threw a rock through the front fiberglass panel last summer (see my previous post). Not only did Gorilla Tape keep the weather out until we made permanent repairs, but it proved to be quite difficult to remove! So, I have a reasonable expectation that this will suffice for my recliner.

Needless to say, I am now much more careful when strapping down my recliners for travel. A big, bulky blanket also goes over the arms to add extra padding between them and the kitchen cabinet.