Friday, September 12, 2014
After a rather successful day at work I was quite prepared for the three and a half hour travel, by car, to the wonderful city of St. Catherine's.
Alex and I had everything packed into the car and were ready to go at about 6:00 in the evening. We had plans to stop for a light supper at a service center off the 401 highway and then continue on our way. We proceeded, with much excitement and a rather loud stereo, from our humble abode into the great known, or so we thought.
The traffic wasn't anything unnecessary. We were moving along at an excellent pace and weren't worried about having to drive along the QEW in the dark. We didn't anticipate there being too many other chipper traveling folk out at that time.
Everything was going according to plan until we were just off the 401, traveling along the 403 at a more than generous speed. We had just started talking about getting near the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway when we saw the taillights up ahead of us. We came to a stop and then began to creep along at a pace slower than that of a turtle.
We informed our destination that we were at a slower than slow crawl, to ensure they wouldn't get too worried about our current location. We thought that there was construction ahead or maybe an accident and would be on our way as soon as the construction vehicle got on it's way or the gawkers stopped gawking.
After about half an hour we were starting to get a little concerned about our present state. We had barely moved. Every time I stuck my head out the window to check if we were almost past it all, I just got the same view of a semi-truck's rear end. We finally got to an area where we had to merge into one lane and we were sure that that meant the construction area was almost done.
To our dismay, the "low coolant" light turned on and our engine began to overheat. We called our trusty mechanic father, Papa, who informed us that we should turn on the heat in the car to take away some of the heat from the engine. This was an excellent suggestion on his part, it worked just as he thought it might. However; it didn't work as long as we needed it too.
'Twas nearing 9:30 and we were passed the hour when we had originally thought we might arrive at our final destination.
As we were rerouted off the 403 to go around the construction area our engine began to overheat again. This time we pulled over to the side of the road to inspect the damage.
Sure enough, the coolant tank (if that's the correct term) was completely empty. Good thing I had about half a bottle of water left. Alex poured it in and we watched as it poured onto the ground from beneath the car.
This was the moment we started to rather dislike our situation.
As it turned out, we had spent a little too much time in the idle position. The radiator hose on Alex's car popped off and leaked all the coolant about the ground, causing the engine to overheat.
After about half an hour of Alex and I trying to reattached the hose while watching the sun disappear to complete night light, we thought it might be best to call CAA.
By then, it was about 10:00 and the air had a night time chill to it. My hands were starting to get really cold and we were running out of things to try to tighten the hose with.
CAA had informed us that someone would arrive at about 11:15 with a tow truck. So we had an hour to see what we could use to fix the car before we had to figure out where to tow it to fix it. We were getting a little worried that nothing would be open at such a late hour but we didn't really have any other choice.
The Wonderful CAA Employee arrived within half an hour of when I made the call, which was much faster than we had prepared for. He was not from the area so he didn't know where we could go that would still be open, and also have the supplies that we needed.
Being CAA members, we had 10 kms of free towing before we had to start paying. We drove for about 9.2 kms and when we couldn't find anything we pulled into a TSC parking lot to see if some mechanical wire would work. Unfortunately, that was a no go.
Without any more options, we suggested that the Wonderful CAA Employee just drop us off at the convenience store we had seen a little ways back. If they didn't have anything to help us we would call our destination for a pick up.
Once we arrived at the convenience store, Alex went into the store to see what they had and I stay to supervise the lowering of the car. The Wonderful CAA Employee lowered the car like it was his job to lower the car.
Alex returned from inside the store with a lovely surprise. He held within his hands a box of 50 zip ties and two large bottles of water.
Some of you are probably thinking that that isn't very much of a lovely surprise. Let me tell you something. When you're stuck on the side of a random road in a random countryside without the equipment to fix the only car you have with you, you will appreciate zip ties and water bottles.
We finally got the zip ties to hold the hose on tight enough and then but a couple bottles of water through before we were able to drive him off the lot.
The Wonderful CAA Employee was more than awesome with the whole situation. He stayed with us until we got the car working and then watched us drive off the lot into the great unknown.
All was well until we got back on the highway and the "low coolant" light turned on again. We got off at the next exit and put more water into the coolant tank. That seemed to work just fine because we didn't have any more "low coolant" lights on for the rest of the journey.
We will have arrived at our final destination earlier than we did if we hadn't had to take the Toronto exit onto the QEW since the Niagara ramp was closed. Thank you for letting us know ahead of time, that was very kind.
A few back roads later and we were back on the QEW preparing to arrive and then retire for the night.
After such an experience, I don't suggest that you ever have your radiator hose pop off while traveling though unfamiliar territory. It is not as much fun as I made it sound.
Make sure you have zip ties, this is t-bear signing off
