As we headed toward the Bay Bridge, we met up with Daughter Alicia and Grandson Shane for our final farewell. Our trip was pretty uneventful reaching cities before or after rush hour. We made it to our first destination in Connecticut at 9 p.m. but in the future we will take the route we took in 2008. (On this trip, we took the G Washington Bridge into New York, but it wasn’t far enough away from the city for our liking, not to mention the tolls were higher and the road was in desperate need of repair.)
We started our first morning with a fascinating tour of the Creed Monarch facility.
This is the company that designed and built the D-Brake that we installed on our truck last year for our trip out West. We went thru several systems, and for those of you who kept up with our travels last year, you will remember that we worked out most of the bugs for them. We just replaced the system prior to this trip and feel that it will work 100%. For anyone interested in purchasing a braking system for their truck, we highly recommend the D-Brake. We could not have asked for a more customer oriented company than Creed Monarch.
Richard’s dad started the company in 1953 so we were lucky to have Richard give us our tour. It’s so interesting how companies start up, evolve and grow. We quickly learned that Creed does more than D-Brakes. It’s basically a tool and die shop. They make parts for all kinds of things, guns, pipelines, cars, etc. Richard explained to us how the company evolved and how the machinery and robots are a big part of the company, but the most important part of the company are the people. I like his philosophy, and I’m sure he is appreciated by his employees.
Richard than passed us over to John, who is the inventor and the person we’ve been working with on the D-Brake system. John showed us his trial and errors on the D-Brake system and demonstrated how they simulate and test the equipment in the shop. John was happy to work with us in getting the system to run correctly on our truck, and we are happy he did! He also showed us his “Professional Tow Brake,” which they are selling to Blue Ox for tow cars, known as the Patriot.
John took us to a great Italian Restaurant “Paradise” where he introduced us to a little taste of growing up in the town of New Britain, Connecticut, home of the universal meat grinder and toaster. Speaking of grinder, that is what they call their “Hoagies” or “Subs.” I just had to try their special of the day, Chicken Ranchero Grinder, which was very good. John has also promised to send me his mother’s recipe for Canadian meat pie. When we get back home, I just might try it and feature it on our blog.
We met up with our friends Bobby and Marcia in Freeport, Maine, at the outlet shopping area. Bobby gave us directions off a different exit than the one he took, which got us into some construction and the need to turn around. What a mess. Then as we headed back in the right direction, our trailer started to make a squealing noise. HERE WE GO AGAIN! As we got closer to our meeting place, the noise got louder and louder. We thought for sure it was the D-Brake again. We called John to give him the bad news, and Bill was back under the truck taking it apart. That did not seem to be the problem, so checking out the rest of the truck, Bill and Bobby concluded it was a bad rotor in one of the wheels. JUST WHAT WE NEEDED! Another trip to the Ford Dealership…. Well, at least we got our extended warranty extended again. As Bill was putting things back together, he took another look at the wheel causing all the noise. We weren’t even sure we would be able to drive it the 5 miles to the dealership. GUESS WHAT HE FOUND. A tiny, little stone stuck between the brake rotor and a sheet metal protection thing. Once he removed the stone, NO MORE NOISE. Boy, the dealership would have had fun with us on that one! We immediately called John so he could also have a good laugh. (he needed one) We concluded it was all Bobby’s fault because if he didn’t give us incorrect directions, we would not have been in the construction zone and picked up that stone.
Solving our truck problem, we had a great night’s sleep and headed the next morning to Hermon, Maine, to shop for our trip and prepare for our guests.
No comments:
Post a Comment