Thursday, September 08, 2005
09/03/05 Saturday through 09/05/05 Monday - Iskut to Terrace
09/03/05 Saturday through 09/05/05 Monday
We got ready to leave Tatogga Lake Resort with Bill and Rossana Hayes who were to be our travel buddies for the day. As I started to pull up onto the road, our engine died and the check engine light came on. The RPM needle was bouncing around, but the engine was not surging. The battery reading was very low and it also fluctuated a lot. We were the next to last pair to leave the park, so Billie our “Tail Gunner” came out and checked everything out. He could find no
evident cause for the problem so we shut down and tried to call the help line at the factory. I had all kinds of problems with the telephone taking my pre-paid calling card to the 800 number I needed to call. Since there was no cell phone service in such a remote area, the pre-paid card is the only option we had, and I had no phone number except the 800 number. I finally decided to start the engine again and see if it had changed. I thought it might clear the computer and run smooth again. It seemed to run smoothly and the check engine light was not on so we decided to try taking it on the road. About an hour had passed so Billie had sent his travel partners on with ours and we were traveling together. About an hour down the road the engine light came on and the computer shut down the engine and a light came on telling me not to restart it. We were dead on the side of the road between Slate Creek and Burrage River. Billie looked everything over again and found nothing that he could do to get it going so we decided that I would go to Bell II Lodge and use their phone because we were in such a remote area that our cell phone did not work. That was the location of the closest phone and it was 47.9 miles away.
I went to Bell II Lodge and they had only a satellite phone service. It cost four dollars a minute to borrow it. I called our Emergency Road Service and told them our situation. After several calls back and forth they arranged for a truck with a lowboy flat trailer to come and get us and take us to Terrace, British Columbia where there was a Cummings Engine Service Center. To get a truck large enough to haul our Motor Home they had to bring it out of Watson Lake which was about 300 miles north of us. The Service Center where we had to be towed in Terrace was about 350 miles from us to the south. There were no towns on the highway between those two towns. There are RV Parks, Motels, Lodges and one First Nation Reservation, but no towns. I was finally told at about 5:00 pm that we would have a tow truck by noon on Sunday. We had broken down at 11:00 AM.
I drove back out to where we were stranded and about 6:30 Billie and Jaye left us there and went on to catch up with the rest of the Caravan. They are staying in Stewart on Saturday and Sunday night. I might mention that on the way back I saw a Black Bear on the side of the of the road, and he just stood as I slowed down to about 20 MPH and passed within thirty feet of him. I didn’t have a camera to get his picture.
After we had supper and read a while I went to bed. We were actually blocking part of our lane of traffic, but we had orange cones out and the Mounties came by and said it was as safe as we could make it. We saw four Royal Canadian Mounties during the afternoon. I had been asleep about two hours and Mary stayed up to read. She came in and woke me and told me to come see what was outside. I have never seen anything as wondrous as the display of light and color reflected in the northern sky. We stood on the highway for about 45 minutes and watched the Northern Lights. It was amazing!! At one time an eighteen- wheeler pulled up and stopped and watched with us for a while. He said he had been watching it as he drove for quite a while. I was amazed by the number of people who stopped to see if there was anything they could do to help us. We especially had a lot RVers and Truck Drivers, but there were some people in cars as well.
We slept late on Sunday morning and got up to be ready when the truck got there at noon. At 3:15 pm I decided to drive back to the telephone and see why our truck had not come. I found out later that just after I left our truck came with another Motor Home already on it. He saw a broken down RV and just stopped and picked it up. The driver of the RV was not expecting a tow until Tuesday morning so he just took ours and did not say anything to the driver of the tow truck, when they got to our coach the tow drover realized his mistake. He took the wrong RV on to the Lodge where I was using the telephone then came back for us.
Meanwhile up at the lodge, I had called our road service and they called the towing company. They set up a conference call and got me on the line with the dispatcher and she said that she had just talked the driver and he was approaching our position and should be there shortly. I headed back out and met the truck with the wrong RV before he got to the lodge. When I got back to our place Mary was a very unhappy lady. They had stopped and talked to her, so she knew what had happened. We did not get started on our trip to Terrace until about 8:30 pm on Sunday, so altogether we were stranded on the highway about 33 hours. We did see two more Black Bears on our trip through the Bell River Canyon.
We got to Terrace about 4:00 AM. I tried to get the driver to wait until daylight to unload our coach, but he had to do it and get on the road back up to pick up the people he left at Bell II Lodge. I don’t know what that did about the tow truck that they had reserved for Tuesday. The unloading was a mess. They lowered the trailer, put 12” wide boards down to run the coach off on and hooked a winch to it. There are no towing hooks on the front of the coach, so they tied a chain to the front axle to winch it off. The trailer was angled down and the winch was pulling the chain upward so when the coach got far enough forward the chain hit the fiberglass body and the 
door of the generator bay that slides out. It did a lot of damage.
Even though today is Monday it is Labor Day and most stuff is closed. I did talk to the Roadside Service group and I talked to the Wife of the owner of the towing company. Tomorrow I will get my coach inside the service center and get them to look it over and see if there is any damage that is not visible. Then I’ll talk back to the owners and get involved with their insurance to get the damage repaired. Maybe these people can even fix this thing so the engine will run and we can get back on the road!!!
We got ready to leave Tatogga Lake Resort with Bill and Rossana Hayes who were to be our travel buddies for the day. As I started to pull up onto the road, our engine died and the check engine light came on. The RPM needle was bouncing around, but the engine was not surging. The battery reading was very low and it also fluctuated a lot. We were the next to last pair to leave the park, so Billie our “Tail Gunner” came out and checked everything out. He could find no
evident cause for the problem so we shut down and tried to call the help line at the factory. I had all kinds of problems with the telephone taking my pre-paid calling card to the 800 number I needed to call. Since there was no cell phone service in such a remote area, the pre-paid card is the only option we had, and I had no phone number except the 800 number. I finally decided to start the engine again and see if it had changed. I thought it might clear the computer and run smooth again. It seemed to run smoothly and the check engine light was not on so we decided to try taking it on the road. About an hour had passed so Billie had sent his travel partners on with ours and we were traveling together. About an hour down the road the engine light came on and the computer shut down the engine and a light came on telling me not to restart it. We were dead on the side of the road between Slate Creek and Burrage River. Billie looked everything over again and found nothing that he could do to get it going so we decided that I would go to Bell II Lodge and use their phone because we were in such a remote area that our cell phone did not work. That was the location of the closest phone and it was 47.9 miles away.I went to Bell II Lodge and they had only a satellite phone service. It cost four dollars a minute to borrow it. I called our Emergency Road Service and told them our situation. After several calls back and forth they arranged for a truck with a lowboy flat trailer to come and get us and take us to Terrace, British Columbia where there was a Cummings Engine Service Center. To get a truck large enough to haul our Motor Home they had to bring it out of Watson Lake which was about 300 miles north of us. The Service Center where we had to be towed in Terrace was about 350 miles from us to the south. There were no towns on the highway between those two towns. There are RV Parks, Motels, Lodges and one First Nation Reservation, but no towns. I was finally told at about 5:00 pm that we would have a tow truck by noon on Sunday. We had broken down at 11:00 AM.
I drove back out to where we were stranded and about 6:30 Billie and Jaye left us there and went on to catch up with the rest of the Caravan. They are staying in Stewart on Saturday and Sunday night. I might mention that on the way back I saw a Black Bear on the side of the of the road, and he just stood as I slowed down to about 20 MPH and passed within thirty feet of him. I didn’t have a camera to get his picture.After we had supper and read a while I went to bed. We were actually blocking part of our lane of traffic, but we had orange cones out and the Mounties came by and said it was as safe as we could make it. We saw four Royal Canadian Mounties during the afternoon. I had been asleep about two hours and Mary stayed up to read. She came in and woke me and told me to come see what was outside. I have never seen anything as wondrous as the display of light and color reflected in the northern sky. We stood on the highway for about 45 minutes and watched the Northern Lights. It was amazing!! At one time an eighteen- wheeler pulled up and stopped and watched with us for a while. He said he had been watching it as he drove for quite a while. I was amazed by the number of people who stopped to see if there was anything they could do to help us. We especially had a lot RVers and Truck Drivers, but there were some people in cars as well.
We slept late on Sunday morning and got up to be ready when the truck got there at noon. At 3:15 pm I decided to drive back to the telephone and see why our truck had not come. I found out later that just after I left our truck came with another Motor Home already on it. He saw a broken down RV and just stopped and picked it up. The driver of the RV was not expecting a tow until Tuesday morning so he just took ours and did not say anything to the driver of the tow truck, when they got to our coach the tow drover realized his mistake. He took the wrong RV on to the Lodge where I was using the telephone then came back for us.
Meanwhile up at the lodge, I had called our road service and they called the towing company. They set up a conference call and got me on the line with the dispatcher and she said that she had just talked the driver and he was approaching our position and should be there shortly. I headed back out and met the truck with the wrong RV before he got to the lodge. When I got back to our place Mary was a very unhappy lady. They had stopped and talked to her, so she knew what had happened. We did not get started on our trip to Terrace until about 8:30 pm on Sunday, so altogether we were stranded on the highway about 33 hours. We did see two more Black Bears on our trip through the Bell River Canyon.
We got to Terrace about 4:00 AM. I tried to get the driver to wait until daylight to unload our coach, but he had to do it and get on the road back up to pick up the people he left at Bell II Lodge. I don’t know what that did about the tow truck that they had reserved for Tuesday. The unloading was a mess. They lowered the trailer, put 12” wide boards down to run the coach off on and hooked a winch to it. There are no towing hooks on the front of the coach, so they tied a chain to the front axle to winch it off. The trailer was angled down and the winch was pulling the chain upward so when the coach got far enough forward the chain hit the fiberglass body and the 
door of the generator bay that slides out. It did a lot of damage.Even though today is Monday it is Labor Day and most stuff is closed. I did talk to the Roadside Service group and I talked to the Wife of the owner of the towing company. Tomorrow I will get my coach inside the service center and get them to look it over and see if there is any damage that is not visible. Then I’ll talk back to the owners and get involved with their insurance to get the damage repaired. Maybe these people can even fix this thing so the engine will run and we can get back on the road!!!
