I am very grateful for the phrase Road-Side-Assistance and it really came into play today when AAA came to assist. Well, it wasn't really Road Side it was more park side. I had called AAA yesterday and got things set up for today, as we really did not have time yesterday. I called around 6:30 this morning and Robert showed up before 7:30. It did not take him any time at all, with my help, and he had the tire changed and we were ready to hit the road. That is after I used Sharon's air compressor to air up the spare before it was mounted, thanks Sharon.
See the nail I picked up somewhere.
Then it was off down the road toward McCall, 274 miles on the GPS and it said we were going to get there a little after 3. We were making good time and then we came to Lewiston. For those of you not familiar with Lewiston, it sets down in a valley at the end of a really long and steep hill and I mean long and steep. So things were going fine as we started down the hill and as we got further down, the brakes began to chatter as they were being applied, of course I was in a lower gear. It was hot out by that time and I kept checking the fluid levels and the fluid temps and nothing was out of the ordinary except for the chattering brakes and shaky front end. We did make it to the bottom of the hill without incident, but things were just not working right. The truck was straining to get up to speed and the RPMs were too high for the speed we were going. I pulled over and checked everything and nothing seemed to be wrong so we headed off again. I was running over the worst case scenarios, do I call AAA, do I get the truck towed, do I drive the truck and get the trailer towed, etc., etc. Things just did not feel right. So we saw a sign for Winchester and it had a gas station an RV park and a Cafe. Sharon in her ultimate wisdom said why don't we just stop here for a while and let things rest and cool off and see what happens, so that's what we did. The restaurant was a couple of blocks from where we parked so we walked to it. Winchester population 308. The name of the restaurant was Calamity's, I that's what we thought we had. It was noon and the place was filled up with all the town people. Service was extra slow, which was good for us, and hamburgers seemed to be the meal of the day. I was still very concerned and wasn't very hungry so we split a turkey sandwich, and I had a Pepsi, wanted a Coke, but had what they had. Lots of interesting people in the place, a couple of ladies playing cards, a guy that worked for the State of Idaho, with his uniform and radio and a very young waitress that had been waitressing there for only two weeks still learning the ropes. The diversion was great. To add to the anxiety there was no phone service so I couldn't make a call for help if I had wanted to.
We walked back to where we parked and with all the optimism we could muster we hopped in an started it up with the determination that we would make it, the remaining 126 miles to McCall. Things worked perfectly, the truck held speed and the RPMs were where they needed to be. Just to be on the safe side I held the speed to 60 mph. On the other side of Grangeville there was another big hill, I think it was bigger than the Lewiston hill, longer at least. This time I went into the hill in a lower gear and did not let the truck get over 40 mph. It worked and we ended up at the bottom of the hill fuller that ever with optimism. From there we made it to McCall to checked in just before 5.
After we got hooked up and said our hellos to Franz and Marcia, we settled in for Happy Hour and some Salmon on the grill with some two point five buck chuck.
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