Didn’t Make the Boardwalk

I mentioned the other day that we were going to go to Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for Harold’s birthday weekend fun. Well, on Friday night, as I described, we made it to dinner and a movie with grandma Christina. But on Saturday, things took a turn for the worse.<br />n<br />nWe had everyone show up as expected, and we climbed into the RV for a quick trip over the hill. About a half mile (one kilometer) before Summit Road, the RV seemed to slip into neutral. I quickly checked, and I was indeed in D (for Drive, as in <em>Forward</em>). Revving the engine in Drive or in Neutral didn’t make any difference. We were headed uphill without a forward gear.<br />n<br />nLuckily, there was a turnout coming up, close enough to coast to. We parked, I played around with the shifter but I was never able to get it to go into forward gear. Reverse seemed to work ok, though. But I didn’t want to back up, downhill, too far. This turnout on the side of the road was much too valuable to lose.<br />n<br />nWe have roadside assistance, good enough to get a free tow of a 24 foot motorhome, but the tow truck would only hold two people, I was advised. To take care of the four others in the motorhome (there were six of us), I summoned up the Uber app on my phone. But it made me upgrade it before it would work. So I upgraded.<br />n<br />nTwenty minutes later, the Uber car showed up and took everyone except me and Penny back home. The wait for the tow would take another three and half hours. The driver reported that traffic was so back coming up the hill on highway 17 that it took about three hours to go six miles. Wow.<br />n<br />nWe had the generator running, powering the air conditioner, and Rita had packed a good number of Coronas, so we were set for a nice, long, roadside wait.<br />n<br />nIn the end, Harold didn’t seem to mind much that he and his friend missed going to the Boardwalk. Instead, they played a LOT of Skylanders and mama even took them to AVAC for some swimming pool time. He’s a trooper, and next weekend, we’ll try to make up for it with a trip to Great America. Stay tuned!