The Close Call Print
Written by Susan Hollingshead   
Sunday, 31 August 2003 00:00

Jamie and his girlfriend Mary moved to Ignace, Ontario two hours north of Thunderbay, in May so that Jamie could fly for Ignace Air for the summer. It is a long drive, roughly sixteen hours and Jamie called just after they arrived to see if we would come up at the end of the summer with the motorhome and tow them back. We agreed to it, as it was a good excuse to go for a trek in the Moho and it was also an opportunity to "test" whether we should tow a vehicle four wheels down or tow a vehicle on a trailer or dolly. We set out, towing an empty car trailer, on the evening of September 28th to get north of Parry Sound before the weekend rush. We stayed in a parking lot that night, just to sleep and headed northward very early in the morning.

Our plan was to take our time and stay at the Sault Ste. Marie KOA for one night, then head to Thunderbay the next day. We arrived at the KOA at around 2:00 and because we had such little sleep the night before, we were exhausted. It was an early night and we were back on the road shortly after 8:00 the next morning. About an hour outside of White River, we encountered our first "close call". As we came around a bend on the highway a large transport truck was stopped, followed by three cars. There was a small truck turning left in front of the transport. This was a two-lane highway, Rick had both feet on the brakes and we had no place to go. The shoulder wasn't an option as it was small, soft and had a fairly big drop. The last car in front of us was also not going to be able to stop and started to pull out to the left. At this point the small truck had completed his turn and the car in front of us saw us in his rear-view mirror and pulled back in. Somehow, Rick managed to veer around all the vehicles, with the RV and trailer completely intact. Thank God, there was nothing coming! Our nerves were shaken but we experienced our first close call and survived to talk about it.Innocent

The rest of the trip to Thunderbay was uneventful and we arrived alive and surprisingly, other than a little less rubber on the tires, our motorhome was undamaged. Is it any wonder that night we slept like babies?