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Blogs by Jim Bondy
Grand Bend Trip 4/6/2010 8:51:14 PM
Well we went up to the camper in Grand Bend on Friday, but this time we went for a different reason: to prepare it for the journey home. We spent most of the day just leisurely packing up as we had always done in the past when we were getting ready for a trip. We feel really good about this because the site fees have really been a burden in the past. Lots of dough to dish out every year, and we didn’t use it to the full potential. It didn’t seem like such a long trip but it is a 2½ hour drive, (sometimes 3 hours with stops) and when you only have Saturday and Sunday available it does cut into our time somewhat. So as you can see there is a double downside to having it up there.
Saturday I drove up by myself to hook it to the truck and bring it home. Kim and Dave (our neighbors at the park) were at their site. They were disappointed that we were leaving, but you know… I guess that that’s life. Dave helped me hook up the camper and guess what…when we checked out the lights only my left turning signal was working. No brake lights or right signal. There was no way that I could go out on the highway like this, tugging along a five thousand pound weight. We used all of our electronic expertise…jiggled the wires. Ok, this was a good sign: now one brake light was working and a left turning signal. There was a lot of corrosion on the terminals but Dave didn’t have any contact cleaner. This had to be what was wrong so we said our goodbyes. Just before I left, I gave Kim an autographed copy of my book with a nice acknowledgement of our friendship in the cover.
I had to stop at the office to get Rick to raise the gates to let me out. Usually they open automatically but in the early spring there are some people that would like to sneak out of the park with their camper, while still owing last years fees.
Rick had some corrosion eater stuff that I figured might work to cleanse my connectors. Sure enough after about a half hour of spraying, scrapping and working in and out, my right signal started to work…then finally both brake lights. Ok now all that I needed to do was top up the air in the tires and I’m off. I pulled to the gas station and it felt like I was dragging a house. The tires were lower than I thought. After putting ten to twenty pound in each, the behemoth glided behind like a song.
Now I’m on highway seventy-nine just cruising along. I’ve been driving South for a little while and it seems to be getting harder to pull as I go. The truck is working so hard that it’s constantly going into passing gear just to maintain my 80 kph speed. It felt like my trailer brakes were partially on, but there was no way to check that out here. I need just to keep going and make it home. My truck is geared for towing and should not be a problem but I feel like we’re at a tractor pull. Finally we got to number two highway heading West and nearing Thamesville where I figured that I should give the tranny a break and let it cool down. I didn’t really find a good spot to park the huge monster, so I headed for the four-o-one heading West. This was the worst. I was bucking a gale-force head-wind with nothing around to block it except my huge boxy camper. I went for about 10 minutes…the truck winding out…wailing…complaining. I glanced at my temp gauge and it was way over half way. Oops. Time for a break, so I pulled as far off of the shoulder as possible, called Pam and let her know that I was going to take an hour break, and not to worry…(Continued in a few days)
Jim Bondy
Author of: Friday on the Trail
A book about our backpacking adventures in Ontario Canada
http://jimbondy.webs.com effexus3.yahoo.com
