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Bruce Mines, day 27
Bruce Mines was not our destination today, but it was a wonderful
place to be if we were going to have a problem -- which we did.
We watched the RV's voltage guage drop and drop and hover near
zero for quite a while. At first, we thought it was the guage
itself, and then the more we drove and talked about it, the more
we pieced together that it was probably the alternator.
There aren't many towns for long stretches on Canada's Highway
17. We were hoping to get to Sault Ste Marie, a larger town,
where we felt we had the best chance of finding a mechanic. But
two miles past Bruce Mines, the engine was making funny sounds
and we figured our time on the road was coming to a close.
We first pulled the RV over to the shoulder (we were lucky there
was a shoulder -- not all the places on this two-lane
highway have a shoulder) on a little slope and put out our red triangles while we
collected our thoughts. Then we decided to try to get it just a
bit more up the road to a gravel road we could see. We unhitched
the Tracker and Lauren drove the RV to the crest of the hill and
onto the gravel road while I prayed. We locked it up, told the
cats to be good for a while, and drove back to Bruce Mines in the
Tracker.
It was Mother's Day -- Sunday -- and only the two local
restaurants were open. The lady at the first restaurant told us
there were two motels -- each restaurant had a motel. We chose
the Bavarian Inn, the other motel, explained our plight, and got
a room. It was a good choice. Someone told us there was an auto
mechanic's shop there, so Lauren walked just up the road and
found it.
We debated about what to do with the RV and the cats, and finally
came to the conclusion that we could probably get it to the motel
with a little luck. We would feel better having the cats close by
-- and the RV, too.
We waited until the full-to-overflowing crowd left the
restaurant, and we brought the RV down (mostly downhill) to the
motel.
Later, we asked about the crowd at the restaurant. They estimated that 800 people had come for dinner. The town is only about twice that size. Mother's day is
the biggest day for the restaurant all year. We made reservations for 8:00 reservation because it
was the earliest they could accommodate us. We dined on sumptious
German food cooked in an authentic German kitchen by a
German-speaking family.
We were fortunate that the auto mechanic is a good one -- he
pulled our alternator out, sent it to Sault Ste Marie with a guy
who was driving a wrecker truck down there, had it rebuilt, and
delivered back by mid-afternoon by someone who lives in Bruce
Mines but works in Sault Ste Marie. What a community! What a
mechanic! Everything worked really well. The cats were spooked --
they were alone a long time in the RV, with unfamiliar noises and
a little colder than usual. But it all worked out beautifully.
We are fortunate that such good and competent people live there
and that we were lucky enough to break down just at the place we
did!
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