Friday, April 10, 2009

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.

Fast Fleet Fix

Jose' and his Father at Fast Fleet Fix work on the new spring brake cylinders before installation, we had both right and left replaced and were back on the road by lunch time.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Grand Canyon


The Grand Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon con't

The Grand Canyon National Park is set up to handle a huge amount of visitors and provides free shuttle buses from the village, the different parking areas and the visitors center. We ended up taking two of the shuttles and walking the last couple of kms to the Hermits Rest.
The views are awe inspiring and it is hard to believe that the North Rim is 10 miles away.









I couldn't get Bill to let go of the tree and step a little more to the left.

Grand Canyon con't

Looking across the canyon to the north rim which is a 1,000 feet higher than the south rim.


Rapids and Phantom Ranch

Phantom Ranch can just be seen as a speck of green in the bottom of the canyon, I am surprised that I was able to get as much with the telephoto lens and the same with the rapids.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Oak Creek Canyon

As we left Sedona heading to Flagstaff we did notice a road sign saying no trucks over 50'. Somehow it did not sink in and we continued on climbing up Oak Creek Canyon towing Granny behind Dutchess, over all they measure 58'. We climbed to 6420' or 1956 meters at times down to 15 miles per hour in first gear around hair pin bends. Thank goodness for our couple of years training in the British Columbian mountains.

The pictures do not do justice to the drop off on the outside of the road.