Rope a Dope

July 29, Quebec Province. Heading for Riviere du Loup.

Another day with minor adventures. About 200 miles into a 400 mile trip, another caring soul with waving arms got our attention, warning us something was wrong. We pulled over and I jumped out and ran back to see how our little Saturn was doing. Halfway there, I realized with a sinking heart that I wasn’t seeing any car behind the RV. Then I spotted the little devil hiding behind the left rear tail light. That was odd. And it was kind of crooked, now that I thought about it. And what was that mess of metal where our towing mechanism was connected to the car?

Then I realized that only one of the arms of the v-shaped towing mechanism was connected to the car. The other side was a mangled mess, and was missing its cotter pin. Apparently the pin had shaken loose, and as a result, the car had been swerving all over the road like a little kid on a rope swing.

How would we know? We wouldn’t. Our backup camera had gone black about 100 miles back, and we had spent a good ten minutes trying to get it to work again, then given up because, after all, what could go wrong?

We unhooked the Saturn and I drove it, following John back about 20 miles to the last RV place we had spotted. It was a simple thing to re-hook the car with new cotter pins and get back on the highway. Nevertheless, we’re now hearing every little squeak and rattle, convinced that the tow thingy may be damaged and the car could dance away and we’d never know.

Now you may ask yourself why we didn’t get the camera fixed while we were right there at the RV place. Simple. Their Service Department was closed for vacation. One wonders if they were off RVing. Or maybe they were all just sitting home, beer in hand, chuckling.

Betty