Dutchess 'slams' on the brakes!

We filled with fuel at the Flying J Truck Stop at Kingman on interstate Highway 40 before heading northwest on Highway 93. It was 4pm in the afternoon, we had just been checked out by the 'Homeland Security' looking for explosives, and were six miles from the Hoover Dam when we got into stop and go traffic. About two miles on when Bill went to move Dutchess to catch up with the traffic in front of us we could not move. Air pressure had gone down, after several attempts to get the pressure up to release the spring brakes we were able to pull ahead and move over onto the side of the road. This was much like trying to drive a car with the 'hand brake' on full and no way to release it! We knew we were loosing air and had no way of fixing it ourselves. We spent the next few hours and after four Auto Club telephone operators, one finally said a tow truck was on the way. By now it is dark and we had run out of minutes on our cel phone.

Around 9pm the biggest tow truck arrived that I have ever seen, 'Mikes Pow-r-tow' with Don as it's driver operator. Don confirmed that we were loosing air to the right rear brake chamber and went under Dutchess to 'cage the brake' and put a clamp on the air line so that we could move Dutchess around so he could hoist her onto the back of the tow truck. We were only 15 to 20 miles from Las Vegas but we could not be towed over the Hoover Dam and across the state line so had to have a seventy three mile tow back to Kingman. After many years of BCAA Membership we really appreciated their help. The American 'AAA' membership would not have covered this tow as their limit is for 33' motor homes.

Don left us outside Fast Fleet Fix for the night, midnight by this time, after arranging to have the owner work on Dutchess the next morning, Easter Saturday.