A Tale of 30 Kilometres

Whew! Miranda's officially officially mine! I dropped her off at the storage place tonight. This was my first time driving her. Yes, I bought a vehicle without test driving it first. No comments on that, please. :-)

I looked her over and then decided to take her out onto the street to see if I could tow. Taking a deep breath, I sat down in the pilot's seat (very, very comfy), adjusted the mirror, inserted a key, and ROAR! My gal came to life! It took me a moment to remember where the parking brake is on such a a vehicle and then we were rolling!

Although I parked her a tad crookedly, I was still reasonably close to the curb, something that was really hard to gauge. I wasted perhaps a half hour trying to hook up my car to the tow bar before realising that I'm missing some pins. I'll check with my mechanic to see if the pins come with the base plate or the tow hitch. I was happy to discover safety cables in her basement so I didn't have to go to the back end of Gatineau to pick some up.

Since I couldn't tow, I moved on to plan B (get someone to pick me up at the storage place) and took off with just Miranda. First obstacle: getting to the end of the street. It's a fairly wide street, but cars were parked on both sides. I held my breath as I ran the gauntlet, but Miranda and all the cars came through unscathed.

I took it nice and easy and made my way out of the neighbourhood. By the time I got to Island Park Drive, about two and a half kilometres away, I was feeling pretty cocky.

And then came the cyclist.

She was well in her bike lane, I was well in my lane, and the traffic in the opposite direction was also well in its lane. But I wasn't so sure about the mirror.... I slowed to a crawl as I passed the cyclist. The mirror seemed to miss her and I moved on, keeping an eye backwards, praying that when she passed my blind spot she'd still be on her bike. I soon saw that, of course, she was, and she wasn't even paying me any mind. I rolled my eyes and continued.

The turn onto Merivale (Merry-vail, not Merry-val-eh, dear Majel!) was a bit awkward, and then I was on Carling, heading for the Queensway. I crossed three lanes to put myself in the correct one. Got to the light at Kirkwood and discovered that there was a utility truck in my lane between myself and the on ramp!!! So, I had to move one lane over in traffic. I put on my turn signal, checked the mirrors, prayed, moved into the second lane, crossed the intersection, passed the crew, and quickly manoeuvred myself back into the third lane to access the ramp.

Whew! I was on the highway!

The rest of the drive was positively uneventful, as I expected highway driving to be. Miranda handles well for her bulk. Of course, I need to get used to braking (I'm not bad at estimating her braking distance needs, though) and the backup camera will be most welcome, but I didn't feel like an utter nincompoop who had no business driving an RV.

Saturday will bring a new challenge: backing up. :-)