DAY IN SAN RAMON

Yesterday morning the winds had faded away at Vacaville and after breakfast we broke camp and started off towards cousin Sue in San Ramon, a residential community on the backside of the Bay. Rick decided to take a back route, which was very comfortable driving, paved but not busy at all. We reached the Sacramento River and followed it along for awhile. I was surprised at how large it was and how quiet and unspoiled the counrysde was, so very close to the San Francisco madness.  Since we were heading towards San Francisco, the traffic gradually built until it climaxed at Walnut Creek where we turned south on the freeway towards San Ramon and the County fairgrounds at Pleasanton. When we arrived at the camprgound, it was an oasis of green and quiet, with large green fields perfect for long doggie walks. We approached the entrance, pulled over on one side for Rick to go in and register. He came out, went to shift the truck out of "park" and…..and….. there was nothing there!!!!!   The gear shift was just loose and floppy. The truck was stuck in park. We sat there stunned, trying to assess what was wrong. Here we were, stuck in "park" and not capable of moving. After a while, Rick determined that something was really wrong with the gearshift linkage. In essence, we were right, it wasn't there. It was hanging loose and floppy. We were somewhat chagrined. What now!!  We were in a good place, that is, not on the freeway or a Walmart parking lot. We were steps away from our campsite. But we couldn't move, and we couldn't detach the camper from the truck. We were stuck. On a Sunday.

Sigh. Other campers came by, and commiserated, and said "well if you can figure out how to detach the truck from the camper we can come and tow your camper to your site for you". We appreciated all the efforts at help. But we knew we were screwed.

Rick has Good Sam roadside assistance coverage, so he put through an emergency call to them for assistance. The plan was for Good Sam to bring out a winch truck that could drag the truck out away from the camper but they were having trouble finding one on a Sunday. While Rick was managing all of the excitement, I took Flossie for a long long walk in the park area.

I returned to a smiling Rick. "I fixed it" he said. He had found the main problem with the linkage, it is supposed to have a retaining clip to hold it in place to the transmission, but it had somehow dislodged itself and the linkage had come off the transmission and was flopping in the air. "I tied it back up with baling wire" he said with a smile. It was enough to be able to get the truck into gear and pull the camper to the site where we unhooked, and set up camp. This is not a permanent fix of course, but today we can call around to a Chevy or GM dealership close by and see if they stock the clip. Rick can easily install it.

Emergency solved, cousin Sue came and collected us for the afternoon at her lovely new home in neighbouring San Ramon, where we met cousin Jodie and had such an enjoyable dinner, without stress of any kind!! And then Sue's daughter kindly returned us to our campsite and on the way we got temporarily "lost" in her neighbourhood and enjoyed an impromptu tour of the Christmas lights. So all in all, it was a very satisfying day :)

Today the sun rose  as usual, all is well in the world, and all that remains now is to find the ruddy clip. Cousin Sue will come and drive us to the dealership, Rick will install the clip, and then we wave goodbye to the cousins in San Ramon, and head further south in the quest for warmth (maybe today, maybe tomorrow)…after all, we are RETIRED, rightt??

PS. Photos to follow. In all the excitement I think I left my camera at cousin Sue's, to be retrieved sometime this morning. Sigh…..


Addendum: "Retaining Clip" is integral to the Shift Cable assembly which will have to be replaced to fix it. Scheduled into the Chevrolet Service department for 7:00am Tuesday morning. Should take about 2 hours. Fingers crossed.