124 Please Not the Motor Home Too!

The year 2010 started out just as any other year, but my adventure into the world of the snow birder, was just beginning and the learning curve was proving to be steeper then I had anticipated and quite costly. I have never been accused of being a know-it-all except maybe by my wife, and certainly not by my mother, as she had a saying that would smarten you up and it went something like this, “If you think you’re so smart, there must be a couple of words you can’t spell.” (This was based on the naivety of an acquaintance, who in all seriousness claimed he knew most everything, but in his pseudo-humility he acknowledged there were still a couple of words that he couldn’t spell.)

To save about $2000 I had arranged to have a tow package put on my RV at Al’s RV in Bellingham WA, so I could pull my Pontiac Vibe, behind my Holiday Rambler.

Sandy and I and a friend, Marianne, who needed a ride to Walla Walla, spent Wed night just north of Bellingham, so we could drop the car off at Al’s RV early Thursday morning, for the base plate installation. The three of us ate breakfast Friday morning at a neat little restaurant in Bellingham, while Al’s RV did the final wiring on the motor home itself.

Arriving back at Al’s RV, the technician went over the new setup with me before we took off. Little did I know that from that moment on things were on a downward spiral.

We finally got away from Al’s around 2 o’clock and everything seemed to go just as planned except the red sensor that told me that the brakes on the car were actually working, refused to light up. That bothered me some, but not enough to go back to Al’s and find out what was wrong. The first mistake.

We stopped at the rest stop at Indian John Hill and I dumped the RV and did a walk around. Things looked OK.

We pulled off the freeway again at Union Gap and headed down Lateral A to visit Sandy’s Sister Sharon and brother-in-law Don.

I stopped at a service station about a half-mile away from Don and Sharon’s place, unhooked the car and attempted to start it so we could drive to their farm. Things were not OK. The battery was stone dead. I fiddled with the switch turning it on and off but to know avail, so I got out of car and hooked it back up to the RV, while we waited for Sharon to drive over to us instead.

We visited with Sharon for a short while then went on our way, hoping to arrive at my son’s place in Walla Walla, in a couple of hours.

The car seemed to pull jerkily as I took off from the service station, but I only glanced in my side mirrors and continued on my way. The second mistake.

Also as we took off I noticed that the motor home pulled harder and seemed to need a lot more throttle, but I let it pass. The third mistake.

There was a church just down the road where I thought I would do a walk around but the driveway was to narrow and the parking lot seemed to crowded so I went on. The fourth mistake.

I still wanted to do the walk around but I was now on a narrow country road that I felt was still too narrow to safely stop on, but I should have anyway with my flashers on. The fifth mistake.

It took several more miles before we were back on the road that led to the freeway but I still didn’t see a good spot to pull over on and again I should have anyway with my flashers on. The sixth mistake.

Minutes later we were on the freeway but my delay in not immediately pulling over and doing a walk around became the seventh and last mistake

What happened next caused fear to run up and down my spine as I now noticed what appeared to be thick clouds of pure white smoke billowing out from behind the RV.

I immediately pulled off the freeway and ran back to see what had happened. White acrid smoke was billowing out from under the hood of the little Vibe and I could see an orange glow of what appeared to be flames trying to escape from under the hood.

My first thought was to open the hood so I could get access to the flames, but it was now too dark to find the hood release. This may have saved my life as this could have caused the flames to really explode into life as the oxygen rushed in to fuel the fire.

I ran back to the motor home for the only fire extinguisher that I had, but it proved useless because of its small size and emptied so quickly that it no more then caused a hick-up to the roaring inferno under the hood. I now frantically tried to find the release pins of the tow bar so I could move the RV out of danger from the flames. To lose the car was painful but the motor home and all it contained made my heart sink.

Unhooking the Vibe from the RV now proved impossible, I had run out of time, the flames were increasing in intensity, three times I had breathed in the acrid fumes, and my chest was now in pain. I decided it was better to leave and ran to the front of the RV where Sandy and an off duty Highway Patrolman and his wife were talking. He had asked Sandy if she had made the 911 call, which he immediately placed, as in our panic we had completely forgotten. It seems that he had been following us for the past few miles and pulled over just as we did, as he had noticed fluid dripping from under the Vibe and then suddenly the clouds of acrid white smoke billowing from under the hood.

I still thought if I went back, I might be able to disconnect the RV from the Vibe, but the patrolman talked me out of it. It was easier for him to make that decision as it was my rig and not his that he suggested would be toast in a matter of minutes, or at least when the Vibe’s gas tank blew. His logic make sense however, as I could replace the motor home, howbeit with some financial pain, but should the gas tank blow, it wouldn’t be just the stretch inning, it would be game over for me.

One of the most dreadful experiences to go through is to realize there was nothing we could do but watch our car and maybe our RV go up in flames. Time seemed to stop, but it was probably less then ten minutes before the engines arrived and what was left of the little Vibe lay smoldering, it’s front end burnt off, the windshield gone, and the plastic dash dripping in puddles onto the floor mats.

A few minutes later a wrecker came to tow what was left of our little Vibe to the wrecking yard and we carried on to our son’s place, in a state of shock, but thankful that God had spared us and our RV. Except for some blistering on the end cap of the RV, that our insurance covered, the motor home was unharmed.

It seems that by getting sidetracked with the dead battery I did not check to see that the car was in neutral and I must have inadvertently left it in reverse on getting out. As to why the battery was dead, that is up for debate, but as it was the probably reason for diverting my attention and leaving the car in reverse, it indirectly was the cause for our mishap.

Some may question the fact that it was God’s providence that an off duty patrolman was following us and made the 911 call, and that the fire truck arrive in less then 10 minutes, which saved the RV or as the off duty highway patrol officer affirmed to Sandy, the whole rig would have gone up in smoke when the Vibe’s gas tank blew. You be the judge. God does work in mysterious ways and I must believe that his angels are more interested in our welfare then we might want to believe.