Alright, when I was 11, in 1998, we moved from our home in Pennsylvania to a new house on the northwestern tip of Washington. We were moving with my mom's friend, Judy.
The last major mountain we had to go through was extremely steep and slippery. The truckers called it the insert-the-only-thing-one-can-think-when-coming-to-the-downhill-part-here pass, cuz, well, it's not G-rated, and it's the only thing one can think when one comes to it.
Judy was driving at this point, and going down the hill, she did as the truckers at a rest stop a few miles before the pass had advised us, and pumped the brakes on the way down to help control speed on this extremely steep, extremely slippery pass without locking them.
After a while, Aunt Judy started getting less and less response from the brakes, and my mom told her that something smelled like it was burning, and instructed her to pull over. She did so, and when we came to a complete stop, smoke started billowing over the sides of the truck. Mom and Judy both realized right away that the brakes were on fire, and Judy got out and started to throw snow under the car in an attempt to control the burning, while Mom quickly leashed the dogs and grabbed the cats (we had two of each) and got them out of the truck. She told me to get out, but I decided to be stupid and stay in to get the fire extinguisher and emergency flashers. Probably a bad idea, but no harm came from it, and once I got it all out of the truck, we were far better equipped to put out the fire, and after ensuring that our truck was indeed "out," we sat inside the truck for about an hour before an emergency vehicle stopped to help us.
The fire didn't get too large, but it could have been much worse. My mother has a history in electronics repair, and she was extremely sensitive to burning smells, because of small burns in boards that have to be detected and dealt with immediately. Aunt Judy and I had no clue that anything was wrong, but she managed to realize something was burning early on. Had she not realized, there's no telling what might have happened.
USMC0705 How it changed my life:It made me be nice to my mom for a few weeks. :-D You can join Unsolved Mysteries and post your own mysteries or
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