If you are going to drive a motorhome through the Alps make sure it's a stick shift

 In 1999 I rented a Diesel powered 6 passenger Motorhome for myself, my then 10 year old daughter, my mother and my 25 year old son and his friend in Munich, Germany. However, if it hadn't been a stick shift going through the Alps during one snow storm passing a Semi Truck going downhill on a narrow road I wouldn't be here today and neither would my then 10 year old daughter.

So, knowing how to downshift in snow and actually having a stick shift driving through the Alps in October when it snowed without chains or snow tires saved our lives.

My wife stayed home with our 2 1/2 year old daughter as she realized it would just be too much to travel that far with someone so little still.  

But, she realized after me almost dying during the past year for around 8 or 9 months and watching her own mother die as well as her stepmother during that year that I needed to realize I was still alive and go to Europe to meet my 25 year old son and his friend there in Germany with my mother and my then 10 year old daughter.