DON LEARNS TO DRIVE STICK - Moosomin to Kenora

Moosomin is a pretty small town and not too busy on the streets, so I took Don to a side street for some driving lessons. He’s got a license but doesn’t know how to drive stick. I’d given him a talk about how a clutch works, which I think helps to understand slipping and the engagement point etc. Anyway, he did well and got it up into 3rd without too much jerking or grinding, which was great. Pretty happy I didn’t traumatize the guy being to over protective about the old transmission and clutch. It’s great that the granny transmission in this truck has a first gear that you can get rolling in without touching the gas. Attention Dads, here are some good steps to follow for teaching your kids how to drive manual. It was so long ago for most of us that we don’t even think about it. Trying to make someone understand how the whole thing works in a way that they can understand it in one sitting is no mean feat.

1. Tell them what the peddles do. Gas = RPMs and clutch = moving two plates together and apart. Use your hands to show them even, they might not get it but eventually they will internalize this part.

2. Don’t yell through at least the first 3 stalls. Won’t help anyone.

3. Help them move the stick and tell them to focus on the pedals.

4. Have them go in and out of 1st a few times and make sure they know how to stop with two feet on the floor. No point in having an accident.

5. Talk them through the changes: “ok now clutch, stick to 3rd, clutch out slow and give it some gas” etc.

6. Try not to hit the windshield when things get a bit jerky.

Finish the whole thing with “good, now go learn better on your friends’ cars and then you can drive this when you aren’t trying to use the fan to pull you forward.”

Not much else to say about the ride into Kenora, we tried to pat a deer we saw but it didn’t’ like that. We got over the Ontario border in the dark, and we knew it pretty much instantly. If there was a sign we didn’t see it, but there were about 400% more signs denoting bumps, deer, speed limits, road conditions, light levels, road pressure, concrete temperature, and horoscope. Ontario, I want my tax dollars back. Literally drove through some of the most precarious roadways in all the Western provinces and the signs were great, only the nessesities. Get into Ontario, out come the signs. Its almost dangerous, the reflection from my high beams off all the signs is blinding. C’montario, take it easy on the signs. We get it you’re a paranoid province with maybe too much money for stuff like signs.