June 13th
Smoked the brakes coming down to Langdale Ferry. Ferry workers kindly held 50 feet of space JUST big enough to hold the truck and trailer and not an inch to spare.
We called Merlin while in the ferry lineup for advice on brakes and we/he did some research and thought we had the brakes readjusted properly.
Off the ferry at Horseshoe Bay and headed merrily up the Sea to Sky Highway. We wound our way along to Pemberton where we bought diesel.
Then we started our journey towards the Seton Recreation Area, a free BC Hydro campsite.
We headed up, up and up and around switchbacks and then down. Boy, was it down. All was good till we hit the steepest 10km downhill to Lillooet. About 3km down, the brakes started smoking. We pulled over on the edge of a cliff to let the tires cool down.
Bravely we set off again. It wasn’t long before the burnt brake smell started again and smoke poured out from the front tires.
Fortunately there was a large pullout. We stopped, chucked the tires and sat, letting our fear subside.
Before we had left on our trip, we had purchased two different roadside assistance plans so I wrote the details down and Don flagged down a nice young man to take him to the nearest cell reception.
Of course the roadside plan is run through the US and they didn’t have a clue what to do or where we were.
The young man, Paul, brought Don back up the hill. Our destination for the night was supposed to be Seton Recreational Area and it happened to be a 2 minute trek back down the hill.
Should we risk it? It could be the last decision we made. We decided to risk it and had Paul follow us down so he could call 911 and report the accident.
Luck was on our side after all. We were able to pull into a campsite and shut down for the night. Santa had to change his suit!
Tomorrow the saga continues…
