Up earlyish and on the road. We did not have a long drive ahead of us so we were not too worried about getting a huge rush on. We thought that we would get to Cape Breton pretty early and that we could take a look around. Oh how we were wrong. It did not take long before we ran into trouble. We headed towards Nova Sccotia and were running fine on the highway. Fineish I should say. We had been having some weird engine noises for about a week now. We thought it was just a loose fender, but I had that fixed the day before we left. It turned out that there must have been something else as the sound was still there... and gtting much much worse.
We were on the way to Truro to get it fixed. I mean that was our intention, but the issue is that in all of this we really needed to get to Truro. So, we tried... we were almost done the toll road and almost at Truro, only 20 km to go! It was a long 20 km. We were going up a long hill and passing a semi when we heard a noise that we should not have heard. It sounded like there was something stuck in the wheel well. It bounced round a whole bunch of times and then it was silent. We made it maybe another hundred metres when the sound returned followed by some other undesirable sounds. I felt the car pull and though I had never had a blow out before I could only guess that that was what it was. I remembered my drivers’ ed’ classes where they told me what to do. It was clear. When the tire goes you are supposed to lay on the accelerator. This will keep the car under control while you pull to the side. At the same time you will be slowing down because the dire will not be working properly. I did just that and in a split second I had the four-ways on and we were streaking in front of the semi to get to the shoulder. We were pulled over and the tire was burning hot, smoking, and behind us we were sporting a nice streak where we had come off the road. Great.
Some younger guys came on after us to see if they could help us. I had a donut in the back and I could change the tire, but we were having engine sounds too and we did not know if the sounds were related to the tire going out. That said, it was time to call on the highway angels – CAA. They were hesitant to give us a tow truck, but when we explained the situation they sent us one. I got a call a few minutes later from a towing company to say that they were on the way. A little while later I got another call from the same CAA... they said that the tow truck had a leak in its radiator and that it was broken down on its way to get us. That meant that they would need to send another truck. That they did, but it meant that we had to wait a little longer. A moment later I got a call from the first tow truck driver... He figured that he must have almost been in visual range of us just ahead by the tool booth, but he too was now stranded at the side of the road, radiator all a ‘sploded.
In the time it took the other tow truck to get to us from Truro many people stopped to see if we needed a hand. Actually, we ended up hiding in the car so people could not see us because they kept stopping. We had a semi stop, and another car, and there was that first one, so we thought it best to sit inside where they could not see us. Eventually we could see the two truck coming down the highway. In another few minutes it had turned and was up with us. Another minute and we were all on the tow truck, including Jerusalem and n our way to Truro.
We made it to the shop, and lucky for us they were not busy. The driver of the tow truck took a look and gave me the diagnosis. The drivers tire had definitely blown up. It looked like it could have been happening for a while and then just bam. It was not a great tire to start with so it was not too shocking. In the blow out the tire fragments had punctured the grease cap on the tire making a mess of everything. There were also some loose belts which might have been contributing to the engine noises. They could fix it all for me for $350 and a few hours of my time. I thought it was a steal, I mean, two new tires and fixed everything? Presumably if this happened now it probably would not happen later. We headed off for lunch and waited for the repairs to be done.
They were.
We thanked the mechanics and they wished us well on our Grand Voyage. On the way out of town we stopped at an Acadian Bus Station. We took out one suitcase and shipped it home. It was not that expensive but there was some piece of mind in removing a bit of weight from the car, and we definitely needed the space for other stuff like... water... and food...
We hit the road and as once we noticed a difference. Never in my time with Jerusalem has he/she run so smoothly. We were now in very good shape. We drove the rest of the way and marvelled at the fall beauty of Nova Scotia. We found our campground after a few stops for directions and settled in for another windy night.
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