Thought this would be a fun topic

I was just watching the midday news after shoveling my drive and walkways, as well as my neighbors. There was a mention on the news that today was national  "Random Act of Kindness" day. Origin, unknown. Got me to thinking...

There must have been sometime along everyone's travels where you may have thought you were screwed, blued, and tattooed.
Then someone came along and saved the day. And quite possibly, the whole trip.

Let's hear some stories. I'm not talking about getting your stereo or TV working at a CG. I thought it would be more fun to hear stories about being broke down in the middle of nowhere, or something broke/quit working in your RV and you thought you would have to cut the trip short, etc.
"Deal breaker" kind of situations where someone out of the blue had a solution that allowed you to enjoy the rest of your day/trip. 

I was driving across the Mojave desert in the middle of nowhere when I came upon an older Class C pulled off the side of the road - it seems his awning opened at about 50 MPH...needless to say it was ruined and the aluminum frame was a tangled mess.

The owner and family - wife and 3 kids were looking quite distraught and standing along side the road....the father had a very small hack saw looking thing (more like a wall board saw) and was trying to cut the frame from the side of the RV...the releases were so bent there was no way to get the frame to disengage.

I pulled over and asked if I could help...he said if you have a better saw, it would help greatly. So into my toolbox I retrieved my sawsall and brought it out - he said that would be great but no electric...I went back to my truck and got my extension cord and said plug it in, you will have electric in a minute...went back and fired up my generator in the bed of my pickup and we had the frame removed in about 5 minutes...needless to say they were most grateful...

They were on their way in less than 15 minutes after having struggled with it for over an hour....of course they now needed a new awning but that could wait until their trip was over....BTW - I put two velcro straps on my awning uprights before leaving.

Have no idea who they were or where they were from...but I was happy to help!

Jim

If I was a judge, that deserves an "Atta Boy" certificate.

My story...
I wasn't even into the RV thing when this happened. I was sitting at home (parents house) when my father noticed a car towing a TT parked on the shoulder a short way up the street. Hood up with the driver scratching his head.
Pop "yelled" at me to go see if I could do something. I did. What the heck.
Mind you, I was in the middle of an automotive vocational tech program in high school. I looked the car over after the driver told me that it just seemed to run out of power and died. I found a field wire had broken off of the alternator. I stripped the wires with a pocket knife and twisted them together. Jumped his car's battery and it fired right up. Told him the repair was temporary, but would get him where he was going (approx. another 26 mile).
He tried to pay me. I told him "Merry Christmas". It was in the summer sometime. I didn't care. I had the biggest s**t eating grin on my face that I thought it would be permanent!

Two lessons learned...
Education does pay off. And it feels good to help others.
 

Traveling to Hoodsport, WA for our summer vacation, the brakes failed on our motor home just outside of Shelton. We had my 92 year old mother with us. We were going to stay in an RV park, and Mom was going to stay with my brother and his family in a rented cabin. I was able to pull over at an RV dealership when the brakes went out. They didn't have a mechanic, but they said we could spend the night on their lot.

I called my brother, and he and I met halfway between our locations to transfer Mom,  so she would have a comfortable place to sleep. I called GSRA, and they said, since it was Sunday, they couldn't find a shop to fix the coach.  They promised to call back in the morning. 

Sure enough, they called and had found a shop five miles away. The tow truck was there in 45 minutes and towed us to Shelton. That's when the magic began. 

The shop took the coach right in and started working on it. They arranged for us to have a key to the gate of the fence around the garage, where the coach was parked with the front end jacked up, so we could stay aboard and come and go as we pleased. Next day, they discovered a bad master cylinder and sent for a replacement. The owner of the shop worked until about 8 PM trying to get the job finished for us, but he couldn't get the new master cylinder to work.

Late the next day, he discovered the new master cylinder was faulty. He apologized profusely, and we decided to go to a hotel, so we could have a hot shower. In the morning, we got a call saying that the coach was ready to go. The owner, who had to be in another city for a business meeting, had come in at 5 AM to finish the job.

Since we had a towed car, we were able to spend the three days sightseeing and visiting with family at the cabin they had rented. On top of that, the campground where we had reservations agreed to violate their own policy and not charge us for the days we missed. We were able to spend the rest of our vacation there and had wonderful time.

We were in Thomasville Ga. Wally World to shop, coming out it was raining and I had a front tire flat. Being 73 and just had a back operation I crawled under the truck to get the spare and a young man and his wife stopped, He asked if I needed help, He stated that his wife noticed the old man and figured I might need help. That young man changed the tire for me and wanted nothing in return, I gave him some money anyway.  We have roadside service but did not want to wait as I had a Dr. appt.
And this young couple really made my day  (and saved my back too.)

The summer of '95 we were camping in Bar Harbor, and a crew of scouts on bikes arrived at the campground. They were cycling the entire Maine coast, and had a chase vehicle with their tents and food. The scouts made it, but the van broke down somewhere on the way.

It's now starting to get dark and there's a bunch of hungry kids at the campground. So we gathered up food and cooked them dinner. The van finally arrived, and found the well-fed scouts singing songs around the campfire. I like to think that's what camping (and scouting) is all about.

We were at a lakeside camp site getting set up for the night when a backhoe on a large truck snagged the power line and left everyone in the dark. We needed shore power for dw's cpap and were in a bit of a quandary. The guy in the next site asked if we were ok and we explained the dilemma. No problem, he brought over an extension cord, plugged into his coach and would run his generator as long as we needed it.
The power company arrived from about 75 miles away and had everything up and running by 9 pm. 8). My wife was embarrassed by our old fiver next to a half million dollar dp but our neighbor could not have been nicer. That is what this whole rv experience has been like for us, great people sharing a common passion regardless of what we drive.

We were out in our new to us boat (10 yrs old) at the local lake. It was our second trip. The boat died. A couple of hours later a house boat came along, and then towed us for over an hour to the marina. We tried to give the young man some money for gas, but he wouldn't hear of it.