Our guts were telling us that no way would the front rotors be in the Aug 23rd shipment. So we talked with the truck mechanic Mike and got a refresher on how to drive the RV on the major declines without riding the brakes. After a short lesson on downshifting, coming to the best possible stop at the top of any hill, continuing to use tow/haul and never to ride the brakes but to pump them we decided to do a test run. Since our drive back to Ontario was going to be about 3000km without new brakes/rotors or fingers crossed maybe only 50% new front rotors we planned a trip back to nearby Rossland where a very steep 9% grade with a hairpin turn into a 4 way intersection with stop signs awaited us. Lori’s was totally pumped to test drive using manual shifting and very little brakes. We got the motorhome all ready to pull out only to find, or not to find, little Miss Safiya. She was missing yet again.
To fill you in, we have MacGiver’d under the steering column and behind the pedals as posted on Aug 12th, however not well enough. We then moved to foam as the cardboard didn’t fool her. This seemed to work for a few days, until now when she got in under the steering column when we were all excited to GO. Given we have no idea what is in the space she goes into, we don’t want to start the vehicle and drive while she is in there. 3 hours later she showed up, but by then our enthusiasm for the test drive had turned to Gin and Tonics. We agreed the following morning, we would grab Safiya as soon as we saw her and put her in her playpen and take off.
The following morning we pulled out of the park around 8:30am, re-enthused! Lori was driving and was able to play with the manual gears going into the town of Trail. We were headed off to get our propane tank filled and knew the location was on the other end of town, yet had NO idea of the incline of the road until we were well on our way with nowhere to turn around. We got the propane and discussed the drive back which was downhill. Reality set in that we were going to be tested on our shifting skills, or lack thereof. Then Lori heard ”oh shit” from Barb, as she read the grade descent level of 9% for the next 2km. Barb then asked “Lori can you do this without breaking”? (Not really a typo lol)
Happy to report Lori shifted into first gear, much to the demise of all the people behind us, and went the next 2 km at 30km an hour. And NO brakes required at that speed HA!
Given our new enthusiasm and confidence in driving we decided to whip into the Canadian Tire. Well it was a bit of an over-whip as Lori drove over a curb. THAT was delightful!!
