When 171 Miles Takes 7 Hours to Drive

We had been rain-bound for the last two days so we were anxious to get on the road...even though the weather finally got nice again.  So we were moving out of our campsite by 9:15 am.  First stop:  propane fill-up.  Second duty:  hook-up the car in the RV.  Third stop: fill up the RV with gas (we're excited to have found $1.81 gas at Raceway).  And this is when things started to go wrong...and just 4 miles from the campground.

I forgot to take the parking brake off on our tow vehicle. 

There I said it.  Andy got out to fill up the RV and smelled the smell we never want to smell again - burnt brakes.  Somehow we committed two Rookie Mistakes.  We didn't push the car back to lock the tow bars (which I always have the parking brake off for) and I didn't do a walk-around the car to make sure brake lights were off**.  We were joking about how off-center I pulled up behind the RV and discussed changing the sensitivity on Brake Buddy, so I think that was my distraction from the routine.

(**By checking the brake lights, I can see if BrakeBuddy is too close to the brake and therefore applying unwanted pressure.  But I also thought the brake lights would come on if the parking brake was on.  Ooops!  Guess I was wrong!)

We only dragged the car for four miles, so we were hoping that was not far enough to cause damage to the tires or rotors.  But we detached in the gas station, shifted her every few minutes til the brakes cooled off (so as not to warp the rotors), checked the tires, etc. 

We also called Honda of Columbia.  Larry in the Service Dept. was so nice.  We talked on the phone, then we took Ele to him to test drive and look her over.  He did it all immediately upon us showing up so we could continue on our way.  Wow, what great customer service!

We drove separately for about 40 miles just so we'd be comfortable that we didn't cause any damage.  Then we hooked up at a rest area and ate lunch.

As we approached the North Carolina border the scenery changed.  Hills.  Lots of 'em.  Longer and steeper.  As we chugged up the big one, we also noticed that the leaves have changed - there weren't any!  SC was in full bloom, and NC only had buds.

Then a traffic boondoggle on the highway caused us to have a knee-jerk reaction - to exit immediately.  We looked at our options and decided on detaching (again) before continuing on the Interstate.

We finally arrived at our destination at 4 pm.  And you wonder why it takes us weeks to leave the state of Florida?  Days like this.