Weather Reports I Have Known

I think that we did something to offend the Weather Gods.

                    We have yet to start a trip that did not have to be scheduled or delayed because of a weather anomaly.

          How about that snow in South Texas!

           Yea!

           It was great  ☹

           (If you wanted a very infrequent school delay!)

          Not if you were starting a trip to Arizona.

           There was enough snow to make snowmen and have the roads be a tad slippery (especially if you are a Southern Driver with little experience with the slick stuff.)

          Being from the somewhat-not-desirable-inclement-weather-Northeast,  we have a significant amount of driving skills acquired over thousands of years (or so it feels like) of driving in Winter.

          Not in Texas!

          While snowfall is not impossible down here, it is so infrequent that they do not have any type of snow removal equipment available, and rightfully so. Listening to locals talk about “Road Conditions” is quite amusing considering what we are used to. I guess the phrase, ‘all things are relative’ would explain this nicely. The ‘horrible roads’ here would barely qualify for a conversation up north. But in all fairness, I’ve always said that the Metro Area folks should all be required to spend a winter in Buffalo, Vermont, or Maine and then we would really know what a winter was and quit complaining about some slush on the road.

          We started this particular Odyssey on a Monday morning. It had snowed all day on Sunday, leaving several inches of heavy, wet snow. Being totally new to this type of event in a motorhome, we neglected to bring the slide-out sides in before the snow accumulated on the top of them. When we went to bring them in, the snow on top just bunched up and made it impossible to retract.

          So, it’s 5 AM, very dark, and as you can imagine, still quite cold outside. I dragged the ladder out and went up with my headlamp on, to scoop all of the snow away. Mind you, when packing and downsizing for a winter spent (hopefully) in warmer climes, the need for any ‘winter’ apparel is thought to be superfluous!

          Hah!

           Needless to say, my snow clearing experience left something to be desired. When we finally were able to retract the sides and pull out, we entered he second phase in the ‘getting ready’ process. This was going to be the first time that we had towed the Honda behind us since we brought it home from where we had the whole shebang set up for towing, with the correct towbar, electrical connects, and the all-important Brake Assisting Guy.

          So, getting all of this hooked up correctly in the dark and cold was a little disconcerting, even though we practiced this process the day before, in order to make sure everything worked correctly.

          Which it did.

          Sort of.

          See, there is a very detailed process of starting, and then moving the transmission though all its gear selections before putting it in Neutral and leaving the key in Accessory I so that the steering wheel can move. Among the detailed instructions was ‘Put the Parking Brake on’. This was so that the transmission and its movement through the gears could be done safely.

          The list did not include ‘Remove Parking Brake’.

          Common sense would dictate that. And where I do believe that I have a sufficient amount of the aforementioned, when you are trying to follow directions and are nervous already, well, strange and uninvited things can happen.

          This particular scenario did not rear its ugly head until we were about a mile away. Evidently I did not have the parking brake on enough to drag the wheels when we started out because we could detect  no issues, the wheels rolled right along. But, when I went to ‘test’ the brakes and applied a significant amount of force,

          Screeeeeech!

          The right rear wheel locked up, smoke, et al, occurred as the car skewed itself to the right.

          Panic set in.

           All of the question’s that we did not have the answers for popped up. And we were leaving the next day on a 2000-mile round trip to Arizona and back!

          Hugely disappointed, we just disconnected everything and drove both vehicles to the holding tank dump station, where we were originally going to. Thinking along the way , I determined that the issue is not with the system, it has to be the Honda because the system can’t apply the brakes to just one wheel, besides, there is ABS on the Honda. 

          This was further illustrated when we got to the dump station and Paula got out of the Honda and asked….. here it comes…..

          “Did you have the parking brake on?”

          Gulp

          “Ahh, yea, oops! Ha-Ha! Must’ve forgotten that! Ha-Ha! (sheesh!)

          Well now that explains everything! A feeling of relief swept over the Expedition Leaders as we realized the mistake. We hooked everything back up for the ride back home and Paula volunteered to ride in the towed car (yes I know it’s illegal, but it was on a deserted road and it was her idea!) as we exited the Park where the dump station is located. The access road is wide and feeling relatively comfortable that it was ‘safe’, she rode in the Honda and we were connected by cell phones.

          Me: “Going to put the brakes on”

          Paula: “Looks good, the pedal went up and down nicely!”

          Me: “Ok, this time I’m going to put it on harder”

          Paula: “Ready!”

          Paula: “Worked great again!”

          Paula: “Now get me  outta here!”

          We stopped before we got on the main road and Paula got back in the motorhome for the rest of the ride back to our parking spot. Relieved that the system worked nicely, we were able to put that issue out of our minds. Good thing we could because the weather was getting dicey and that was enough to worry about all by itself.

          All in all, we spent about an hour between the snow on the roof and hooking up the Honda. Then stopping relatively frequently in the next hour to get out and check things made us were run later than we had wanted to. The morning got better as we drove along, and we stopped at Bucees (!) to fill the tank and our bellies with fuel and Breakfast Tacos! (we ate the Tacos; the fuel was for Big Foot).

          The rest of the day was spent trying to get out of Texas.

           It’s hard to get out of Texas.

           Unless you live relatively close to a State Border.

           Otherwise,  it takes days to exit. We made it to a rest stop on Interstate 10 in West Texas by 4:30 pm after driving almost 600 miles, and we still had an additional 200 miles to go before we got to New Mexico! Incidentally, this is the same stretch of highway that just last week, I spent an inordinate amount of time stuck on because of….. SNOW!

          Maybe we should have planned to winter in Alaska.

Next Post will be from sunny Tucson! (Hopefully!)