We're back! Still have enough beach sand stuck everywhere to ALMOST feel like I'm still on vacation. But one look at the laundry hamper snaps me back to reality. :(

Bless Belinda's smokey black heart, she came through like a trooper. It wasn't easy for the old girl though. I would recommend that anyone considering such a trip to travel with horseshoes up their butt. We did. It's a tad uncomfortable, to be sure, but the loss of comfort is worth it.

Before I tell you what happened, I have to tell you about driving past a place called JimSmith lake! Wow, I was impressed... I didn't realize being shop moderator carried so much prestige. Trudeau had to DIE first before they named a mountain after him.:p I didn't see any engatwork lakes or mountains (or even babbling brooks)... are they in the Himilaya's or something??:p (BTW JimSmith, I think your lake is now on fire)

Anyway....

We left here on a Thursday night, but not until hubby got off work so we didn't really get too far. The Crowsnest Highway is an ever-changing postcard of mountain beauty, but not one you would want to drive in the dark. I think it was built by the same engineers that design the rides at Disneyland. Solid rockface on one side of the road, sheer cliffs off the other side, no shoulder and hairpin corner after hairpin corner. Much better to do it in the daylight when you can SEE how white your knuckles are on the steering wheel.:p My nerves weren't helped by the fact that the side of the road is speckled with flowers and crosses remembering those that didn't survive a meeting with the mountain. But, we did the worst stretch of road early in the morning when we were still bright eyed and bushy tailed.

For the trip we bought a small TV (which we wedged between the front seats), and a VCR, which we hooked up to a second battery. That many hours in the car with a four year old and I probably would have been pulling a Thelma and Louise and WILLING driving off a cliff without a little help from Disney.:p Unfortunately, the first time we tried to use it, it didn't work.:( In Osoyoos we took a longer break, and while I took the dogs and daughter down to the lake for a swim, hubby set about to fix the VCR. He promptly electrocuted himself.:rolleyes: Fortunately he doesn't have a pacemaker, and he felt the burnt fingers were worth the ensuing silence of the next few miles.

We made it to Christana Lake without any mechanical problems, and if that had been our final destination, we would have been laughing. But, the family reunion was actually at another lake just north of Cranbrook. I was told that was about 3hrs from Christina Lake, but it's really closer to five (even on a good day). We hit the toughest climb of the trip just past Christina Lake at about 3 oclock in the afternoon. Prior to this we simply shut the air conditioning off if we were climbing. The temp had varied between 110 on the climbs, then back down to 90 in the downhills. But, part way up to this summit (I think it was about 1700m or 5600ft), Belinda gave up. THe needle sailed in to the red, and she just shut herself down.

Question: Why is it, that even in the land of 50billion trees, you won't get stranded IN THE SHADE???:confused: Is that some sort of Murphy's law thing??

There we were, stranded in the middle of bear and Sasquatch country. Sandwiched in between a rock cut (which effectively stopped any breeze which might have happened by), without a shoulder to pull off the road (fortunately there was a passing lane), the ambient temperature probably close to 100F. I don't know for sure, the subsequent days got up to 100F, and with the heat radiating off the pavement it certainly FELT that hot. I know, I know, it gets hotter in Texas. But I have cold weather thick blood so I feel it more. Kind of like using the wrong grade of oil for the season. :p I couldn't even take the dogs out of the car because I was sure the pavement would burn their feet, and there was NO off pavement area without trucking up or down aways. So we sat with all the windows down, watching the helpful cellphone message, "Searching.... Searching....":rolleyes:

Fortunately, we were in The Land of Good People, and after a time this man stopped and asked if he could give us a tow to the top. So, yup, we got towed by a Ford. :p We're not proud. But, he didn't really tow us to the TOP, that was still another couple of miles. And we STILL weren't in the shade where he left us. But, by this time the engine had cooled off enough for us to add some coolant (I had taken an extra 2litres of mixed coolant) , and Belinda started once again.

But, she continued to overheat.:(

I TRIED to turn the heater on to draw some heat off, but no matter what I set the climate control to, the airconditioning came on! Finally I got the idea to set an icepack over the temperature sensor. That kind of worked, but even then it would only blow heat for 30secs at a time. We limped along like this (for far too long), with Belinda staying hot even going DOWNHILL until we came to Rossland. There we parked her in a nice shady spot and let her cool down completely. I found a payphone and called my brother (he was the one hosting the reunion) to let him know we wouldn't be making it to the salmon BBQ (sniff) and lobster boil.

Sidenote: This brother is my 'BMW brother', so we some times give each other a few barbs over car choice. He buys BMW's that are 20-30yrs newer than my Mercedes, so it isnt' really comparing apples to oranges. Truthfully, I have nothing against BMW's, but, well, he started it. Yet another side note: He recently purchased a BMW Z3 convertable, which is a pretty 'hot' looking car. But, hot looking or not, my mother made a comment that she 'liked the ride better in Belinda'. Admittedly, she knows nothing about cars, but a 'Mom likes me best' dig is always enjoyable.

Anyway, back to the story....

When I managed to get ahold of my brother to let him know we weren't going to make it because of car problems, his first question was, "So, WHAT is it you're driving?". He knows bloody well what we were driving. Ugh.

Once the temp was back down to about 80 we struck out once again. It didn't take long for the temperature to soar back up. Now we were startign to wonder if it was the thermostat or something else kaput. It was startign to look more and more like we wouldn't be making it all the way THAT NIGHT, never mind just being late. Just after 5 we pulled in to a tiny little town, and I saw the headless body of a man under a hoist. A mechanic!

I'm not exactly sure what all he did (we were once again in the full sun so I buggered off with everyone to find some shade), but I saw him disconnecting a hose. I think he did that burping proceedure someone here wrote about. And then he added water. Lots and lots of water. :rolleyes: Poor Belinda. I guess there must have been a huge airpocket or something because it LOOKED like there was enough coolant in the reservoir. But in fact she was way too thirsty. He added the water, and we continued on the rest of the trip without incident. He didn't charge us, so neither the tow or the repair cost us anything (how unusual!)

My husband got this sheepish look on his face, and he said, "You're not going to tell your friends on the Mercedes board about this, are you?" Hee hee. I told him everyone could use a good eyeroll now and then to exercise their corneas.
We finally got to our destination about 10pm, some 14hrs after starting out.

The next few days were taken up with family stuff. Rafting trip one day, then a trip to a gold rush town another day. It was fun, but too much time with MY family and I overheat. :p My 4yr old is always mixing phrases up (her latest is "Wake up and smell the beef!" (we have been eating a lot of red meat lately:p ) She put together, "You drive me crazy", "You drive me up the wall", and "You drive me nuts", to coin the phrase, "You drive me crazy up the nuts!!". That sums my family up nicely.:p I'll attach a pic of the group of us.

Monday we headed back to Christina Lake for our own vacation. THe temp went up a bit too high at Rossland again, so we just waited a bit for it to cool then made it the rest of the way jsut fine.

We had a cottage that was described as being '4km from the lake'. What they forgot to mention was that 2k of that was vertical, and up a logging road. We had lots of occasion to use the never before used gears of 'S' and 'L'. It was a bit of a jaunt to get there (wouldn't run back for lip balm), but what a place once we were there. There are only a few people living up on this road, all on large acreages, so it was unbelievable quiet. We stayed in a cottage made out of straw bales (good thing the Big Bad Wolf didn't come along :p ) so it stayed very cool. Lots of wildlife. They have an 8ft high electric fence around the whole property, and strict instructions to close the gate before and after entering so that the elk, deer and bears don't come in and raid their garden. On the trip up/down we saw a baby bear a couple of time (I wanted to paint my daughters hand in honey so I could get a pic of him licking her hand (KIDDING)), deer, buffalo, and a family of wild turkeys. I didn't even know we HAD wild turkeys in Canada.

Anyway, that part of the trip really felt like a vacation. Down to the beach each day, then home to some solitude in the evening. Sigh....

We decided we really needed to get some coolant in to Belinda before the trip home (since she must have been 80% water), but we didn't figure our hosts would welcome us draining coolant in the middle fo their totally organic grow op :p . So, we figured if we had to pay someone to do it, we might as well get the rad flushed, which is what we did.

Part 2 to follow (over the character limit)

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Natalie

We left at 6am yesterday, and fortunately it was a much cooler day (and I don't think the climbs are as bad going out to the coast). The temperature stayed between 80-110. But, after we had been home about an hour, my husband drags me out to the driveway to show me that there is coolant, well, pouring is too strong a word, drizzling is maybe better, coolant was drizzlign from underneath the car. Upon investigation he found that the screw holding one hose clamp was stripped. and it was leaking from there. He replaced it, and so far so good.

Horseshoes up the butt. Don't leave home without them. That, and LOTS more coolant. It was funny, yesterday we were driving past this pristine looking glacier fed stream, and my husband says, "Wow, that's the colour of coolant'. How to tell when your mind is preoccupied with something! What an analogy.

Despite the overheating, Belinda is running and starting like a charm. One man came up to us at Christina lake and wanted to buy her. On FRiday, my husband probably would have sold her for the price of three bus tickets, but by the time this guy was inquiring, he was back to being full of admiration for her stamina and endurance.

Rats, I'm out of time and I didn't get to tell you anything about the forest fires, or the fuel economy (it was GREAT!) or about the fact she never burned any oil. Oh well, if you made it this far, you're doing well. :p

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Natalie

A great read, and some hilarious bits!

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Matt
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1995 E300 Diesel (Die Blau Frau)

Yes, we are looking forward to post number 3.

That is one of those Good News/Bad News deals... " you have a lake named after you/ It is ON FIRE " LOLOLOLOLOL

Fortunately that is not the only body of water which has caught on fire in the United States.... so it won't be associated in the popular lexicon as ' the lake that caught on fire" forever...

Your overheating problem was the bad clamp, allowing the coolant to leak out and preventing the cooling system from pressurizing.

The get heat in the summer, just switch the climate control to defrost, or turn the temp wheel all the way up til it clicks, should get full heat either way.

Sounds like a wonderfull trip, except for the part about sitting on the side of the road.

I had a fuel pump quit in Tulsa OK one nice July day, temp around 107, AC fried, middle of a construction zone. Quite an adventure there!

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

Hi Natalie , your trip sounds similar to my camping trip up in the mountains outside of Merritt a few weeks ago ( before the province caught on fire). 38C in the shade , the Turtle packed to the rafters with camping gear , 50kms straight up a gravel forestry road ( the map said 2wd ), one eye on the temp gauge , the other watching for speeding logging trucks coming around the next corner .Here's a pic of the fire near Kamloops..

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Democracy dies in darkness, you have to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight

Sorry to hijack your thread Natalie , but here's a pic of the Osoyoos fire in July...glad that's not my house.

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Democracy dies in darkness, you have to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight

OMG Kyle, what pictures! Those poor deer... I heard the temp at the fire is something ridiculous like 800 or 1000 degrees. Is your brother's place still okay?

The first human fatality- a pilot from Mission. I hope not a friend of yours.

We seemed to be ahead of most of the fires. Either that or we were starting them as we went. :p Our last day at Christina got very smokey. Someone told me there was a fire at the other end of the lake, but I didn't hear that on the news so it may have just been rumour mongering. There seemed to be a fair bit of agitation among the locals. The most smoke I saw was when we travelled through Grand Forks, I guess the Washington fire is getting very close. Seemed like it must be just over the hill.

Who'd have thought we'd ever be WISHING for rain HERE? Usually it rains every damn day!
Nope, wouldn't work. The whole system is a bit tempermental. You never know which orfice the air is going to blow out of. :p But usually the temp is predictable.
It's hard to say when that happened. There wasn't have a leak prior to this trip. I wondered if the guy who did the rad flush did something? Who knows....

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Natalie

Hi Natalie , my brother's place is safe for now but the smoke and ash in the area is certainly keeping everyone uptight . The pilot wasn't a friend but his family were neighbours of ours when we lived out on Nicomen Island , a real tragedy . Those pilots are as brave as any fighter pilots , IMHO .

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Democracy dies in darkness, you have to kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight

Jassz,

Sorry I missed your post when you originally posted it and I went looking while waiting for an airplane just a few minutes ago remebering leathermang posting an update would be out soon. That was a while ago, so I figured I missed your report.

I drove the family up to Banff from Spokane, Wa about 10 years ago, and we stopped to take a photo of the sign directing you to my Lake. I hope the lake survived - kind of a tough fate for a lake named for you to burn! That was a beautiful drive, even if we were in a rental SUV. It was in January, as we were going skiing, and it was bitter cold. We stopped for a swim in the Radium Hot Springs on the way back just to see what they were all about. It was quite nice, as long as you could keep your body covered with hot water.

By the way, I have never run into the character limit for a post (it is always a hindrance for PMs though) so I suspect you have the honor of the longest post. I thought I had that record on one of my longer rants...

Sounds like a great trip, and an opportunity to learn more about the car. Now that you have the coolant mystery figured out, you will be able to help all of us with constant warmer than new operating issues. Great to hear about the trip, and the fact that the car, with your persistance, overcame the challenges. Jim

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Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)

I have The Longest Rant distinction??? Wow, that's almost as good as a lake named after me. It's 10,000 characters by the way. Emoticons are quite limited. Now and then I've made submissions to various publishers, and would it surprise you to know I have trouble staying within the word limit???

That's great you've seen 'your' lake! I suspect the temperature difference of 80 degrees or so changed the terrain a bit from when you saw it. I haven't heard much more about the fire in that area... the fire around Kelowna grew 5 fold in 24hrs, so that's all that we're hearing about. Thunder showers forcast for tomorrow, rain for Saturday. I hope so. The attached pic is Okanagon Lake..
I think you could take out "with your persistance" and substitute "despite the owners".:p

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fire.bmp (31.7 KB, 125 views)

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Natalie