We know the brake buddy works. With the big Bounder, I can't feel the brake
buddy in the tow car when it kicks in, so I hooked up the monitor light.
There is a sending unit in the tow car, and a receiving unit plugged into
the dash of the motorhome. This stuff isn't required to make the brake
buddy work, it's just feedback for the driver to see if it's working, so I
don't usually plug it all in. In the gas motorhomes, I could feel when the
tow car brakes went on, so I didn't need it. In the diesel Bounder, we use
the brake buddy mostly for appearance. State law requires tow car brakes.
The jake brake and wheel brakes are so good, we don't need the tow car
brakes too. Except. Except this trip, we discovered why tow car brakes are
a good idea, even on level ground, even when you don't think you need them.
It was the car on the shoulder up ahead. We're driving seventy miles an
hour on the freeway. There is a car on the shoulder. I checked the left
mirror to see if I could move over. I figure we create a pretty big whoosh
going by, so I always move over for someone on the shoulder if I can. Not
this time. There was traffic beside me. Up ahead, the left blinker came
on. I had just enough time to say out loud, "just don't pull out", before
the car pulled into our lane at about 20 mph. I got on the brakes, the jake
brake, and the air horn, in that order, at full mash. I hoped the car in
front would pull back onto the shoulder, but no luck. It just held its
position, and gradually accelerated up to speed. Ultimately that speed was
about ten miles per hour under the speed limit. I guess it wasn't really
that close, either. We never got closer than about fifteen feet to it.
Going from seventy to thirty, it seemed like quite a while, though, before
we knew it wasn't going to be a very bad experience. The next couple hours
included more adrenaline in our systems than we needed. I guess the law to
have tow car brakes is a good idea, even if you don't think you really need
them.
Our first night out, we stayed at River Dance RV Park. We've been watching
this park take shape for the last couple years. You can see it from the
highway, just east of Glenwood Canyon. It's between the highway and the
Eagle River. We stopped there last year just to drive through and check it
out. We ended up talking to Rusty, the owner/operator. He brags that his
property has the best trout fishing on the river. What an ambitious guy.
This is not a large corporate operation. This is a guy that likes to camp
in his RV and wants to build a park just like he would like it. It's coming
together slowly, but he's doing a good job. It's one guy doing it himself.
Our site was level. We had water and 50 amp electricity. It was an easy
walk to the river. He has put free standing lawn swings overlooking the
water. He was right about the fishing. Five rainbows in an hour. All good
size fish. I fished a parachute adams for a while, but even though there
was a caddis hatch on, there wasn't any activity on the surface. I tied a
pheasant tail nymph on as a dropper and drifted them through some currents.
That worked very well. After a few fish on the nymph, one even came up and
bit the dry fly off the surface. That's my favorite; a rainbow trout
explosion on my dry fly. All fish survived the experience and the barbless
hooks.
Riparian habitat. Kingbirds and orioles in the river valley brush.
Warblers along the water.
