Diva Disabled

Well, it was bound to happen. But before our first actual trip with Diva?

We brought Diva up to our mountain cabin in Tryon North Carolina to finish provisioning her and to get ready for our first trip to a campground.  Our log cabin sits at the highest point on a 3 acre lot. The driveway is steep and narrow. The sides of the driveway are lined with large rocks which help to define the driveway and to control erosion of the slopes surrounding it. Worse, we recently had the driveway repaved with "crush & run" which we thought was a combination of stones and asphault which is rolled into a hard driveway. What the pavers laid down was what we call "gravel". Small loose stones with nothing to hold them together. Even with the loose gravel we have never had any problems with our cars or trucks making it up the hill to the house. And we didn't have any trouble bring Diva up the drive to the front of our cabin. We drove straight in and had momentum going for us.

Then we tried to back Diva out. We wanted to place her near our garage which is one level down from the front. And there is a 90 degree turn to make. It all started well. We almost had it but the rocks lining the drive made impossible to complete the turn with the truck. So we tried to pull forward to straighten out/ But starting from a dead stop  we could not get the rig to go straight forward. The wheels spun in the gravel and Diva skidded sideways downhill carried by Newton's old friend, gravity. Still we didn't give up' We made 3 more attempts and almost had it twice. Each failure resulted in Diva being further mired in the slope, the gravel and finally the landscaping. We had to admit that we were hopelessly defeated.

Diva's Right side stuck

We called Good Sam Roadside Assistance and after some misunderstanding they sent help. Jim Cole & Sons Wrecking Service from Forest City, NC came and did a magnificent job. They had to attach chains to the side of Diva and pull her out of the ditch she was in. Debbie and I sat off to the side like parents worried that their child had some fatal illness. The driver (I didn't get his name but he was great) pulled Diva 5 or 6 feet up the slope to the driveway. It still took another 30 to 30 minutes to get her completely into a safe spot with her front facing the road a short straight shot away.

Viewed from the rear

Some lessons learned:

1.  For $79 per year Good Sam Roadside Assistance is a great buy. I bought my policy one week ago.

2.  Steep, narrow, gravel driveways with sharp turns are best left to the experts.

3.  Jim Cole & Sons Wrecking Service, Forest City, NC does their job well.

Rescued at last

So Diva and the truck are none the worse for wear. Debbie an I are expected to recover soon.