JohnD
Moved on to the next thing...
Today, while coming down the mountain on Hwy 34 (Big Thompson Canyon) from a week of camping in Estes Park, Colorado, we had one of those white knuckle experiences that we all fret!
I was following another travel trailer and was probably 8-10 truck-trailer lengths behind them.
It had just started to rain so the road was just starting to get wet . . . the speed limit 45 and we were going about 35 . . . then a blind sharp left curve and the trailer in front of me disappeared . . . I slowed down a little more . . . and as I rounded the curve, the trailer in front of me was stopped as another vehicle was making a left turn into a driveway and was waiting for oncoming traffic to pass!
"Oh $#!+!" I shouted out and hit the brakes, only to start sliding and squeeling . . . I let off the brakes . . . pumped them a couple of times . . . slammed them again . . . slid a little more . . . pumped them a couple more times . . . then put all I had as I slammed on the brakes one last time!
I was sure that we were going to run into the back of that trailer, but somehow I managed to get the beast stopped about 10 feet from the rear of that trailer . . . in a huge cloud of smoke as that burning rubber smell encased us!
And . . . somehow I kept the whole rig straight!
I pulled over about 10 miles down the road as there were no pull-offs handy that I could use (they were all closed off as this is one of the canyons that suffered major damage last year during the Colorado floods) to check everything out (including my shorts ), and all seemed to be OK, other than the kitchen drawers came open inside the trailer.
I don't know how I managed to stop . . . but I did!
We've been shopping for a new truck, and I told my wife that this was my current 1996 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 trying to keep it's job!
Which it did very well today . . .
Took this shot as we were getting ready to pull out of our campsite about 20 minutes before the big skid:
I was following another travel trailer and was probably 8-10 truck-trailer lengths behind them.
It had just started to rain so the road was just starting to get wet . . . the speed limit 45 and we were going about 35 . . . then a blind sharp left curve and the trailer in front of me disappeared . . . I slowed down a little more . . . and as I rounded the curve, the trailer in front of me was stopped as another vehicle was making a left turn into a driveway and was waiting for oncoming traffic to pass!
"Oh $#!+!" I shouted out and hit the brakes, only to start sliding and squeeling . . . I let off the brakes . . . pumped them a couple of times . . . slammed them again . . . slid a little more . . . pumped them a couple more times . . . then put all I had as I slammed on the brakes one last time!
I was sure that we were going to run into the back of that trailer, but somehow I managed to get the beast stopped about 10 feet from the rear of that trailer . . . in a huge cloud of smoke as that burning rubber smell encased us!
And . . . somehow I kept the whole rig straight!
I pulled over about 10 miles down the road as there were no pull-offs handy that I could use (they were all closed off as this is one of the canyons that suffered major damage last year during the Colorado floods) to check everything out (including my shorts ), and all seemed to be OK, other than the kitchen drawers came open inside the trailer.
I don't know how I managed to stop . . . but I did!
We've been shopping for a new truck, and I told my wife that this was my current 1996 Dodge Ram 1500 4x4 trying to keep it's job!
Which it did very well today . . .
Took this shot as we were getting ready to pull out of our campsite about 20 minutes before the big skid: