Last Monday, once
again, my online quilting groups could not send or receive posts. One of the ‘Is It Down’ websites said the
group sites were up; another said they were down. The ‘outage’ didn’t appear to be as
widespread as the previous week. Some groups were working all right; others
were not. The trouble with those ‘Is It Down’ sites is that their ‘ping’
functions only check the main homepage, and since group homepages were indeed up,
they generally reported that all was well. But if one scrolls down to
the comment section, one will find that many, many people are complaining about
the Yahoo groups being unable to send or receive messages. Yahoo has definitely been having trouble
herding their gremlins into a semblance of order lately.
I finally found a
Yahoo forum where a few possibly clueless Yahoo techs bumble about, seeing what
there is to see (when they aren’t napping), so I left my own note amongst all
the others, adding one more vote to the matter.
On one comment
column, someone who signs his name as a professor of one sort or another from
what he obviously considers a high-ka-flootin’ college wrote a reply to my
comment: “Please put a date on your
comment!”
I looked at his
remark for a moment, considering ignoring the pompous dumb-dumb, then decided, Nah,
let’s call him down in front of the entire audience. So I wrote a
reply: “There is a timestamp under each comment.”
I wanted to add, “Duh!”
but my Mama would have frowned on that – and besides, sometimes one is more
effective when one is merely factual. Let the audience think to themselves,
“Duh!” Audiences are capable. Heh
It wasn’t until
Thanksgiving Day that messages began coming through the groups again.
Tuesday, I watered
the houseplants – the cyclamen and African violets are in bloom – and washed
clothes. Here’s Teensy, helping me.
I edited the
pictures I’d taken of flowers, birds, and cat, then went to put the borders on
the Baskets of Lilies quilt and get the rest of the appliqué flowers pressed in
place.
Supper that evening was Mexican pizza, cottage cheese
and/or yogurt... with Thompson grapes for dessert. Afterwards, I trotted back
to the sewing room.
After I commented in last week’s letter that fabric for a
king-sized quilt can cost several hundred dollars, a non-quilting lady wanted
to know if the fabric for every quilt
I made cost that much, and if so, how in
the world did I keep quilting?
I told her that I
carefully save all my scraps, and many quilts I make cost practically
nothing. Well, of course they cost something... but I don’t spend
any new money, if that makes sense. For instance, fabric I bought
to make my sister and brother-in-law a king-sized quilt cost $350 (I got some
of it on sale). But I cut very carefully ... saved every piece that might
possibly come in handy... and a couple of years later, I made us – Larry and me
– a quilt with the leftovers, having only to buy a small amount of coordinating
fabric.
I spent $400 on
fabric for the Mosaic Lighthouse quilt... but I had a lot of fabric left over,
and have used it on many of the quilts I’ve made since. My stash isn’t
nearly as big as most quilting ladies’ stash is.
When it’s time to
make Jeremy and Lydia’s quilt (they’re next in the roster!), I’ll have to go
buy all new fabric. It’s fun to do, going to the quilting shop, and
picking out all the fabric I want. I’ll
be saving for it!
One time a lady was
going on and on (and on) about a wall hanging she’d made. Now, granted,
it was lovely, and she’d won a ribbon at the county fair for it. But when
she emoted, “—and it took me 45 hours to make!” I saw a number of heads
turn and look at her. Some of those people had created works of art that
took them several years to make – 500-2,000 hours. The lady, seeing all those heads swiveling
her way, preened. She was so sure that nobody on the face of the
earth had ever spent so much time on a quilt, or... any project, for
that matter.
Wednesday morning,
I filled the bird feeders. For a month or so in the late fall, we see
very few birds... and then they come flocking back in droves. I think for
a while they find all the seeds they need in nearby fields and pastureland, and
then when that source dwindles (or gets covered with snow), they come flitting
back to our feeders. In one short span alone, I saw house finches, goldfinches,
English sparrows, cardinals, juncos, blue jays, downy woodpeckers, and Eurasian
ring-necked doves.
That afternoon, there was a bad accident on Highway 81 just
north of our house. A pickup ran into
the back of a truck that hauls feed to farms. The auger that they use to unload the feed
sits on the right side of the truck and sticks out the back a little bit – and
the pickup wound up partially wedged under and against the truck, and hanging
on that auger, which went through the driver’s side of the pickup. Just looking at it, it was hard to believe
the driver could have survived, but he did.
Turns out, he’d
been trying to pick something up off the floor. The fact that he was
leaning down and over probably saved his life, since the driver’s side got
smooshed... but it would’ve been even better if he’d not have been
scrambling around on the floor and not noticing that a truck was stopping in
front of him.
I got a few more
petals appliquéd on the Baskets of Lilies quilt. Then I reluctantly
stopped with the appliquéing, spread the quilt out over my frame so it wouldn’t
get hopelessly rumpled before I got back to it, and set about packing our
bags.
I packed everything
I could pack until the next day (we still needed to use things like
shampoo, conditioner, comb, brush, toothpaste, etc.). We were going to leave for southeastern Colorado
immediately after our Thanksgiving dinner at church, going to a place near Dove
Creek, Colorado, which is about 900 miles from our house seven miles west of
Columbus, Nebraska. We planned to pick
up a tractor Larry had purchased from the online auction, Big Iron. It’s
a four-wheel-drive 1980 Massey Ferguson, exactly what he’s been needing for the
haying he does at Teddy’s place, where there is a natural spring that sometimes
makes the place boggy, causing his other tractor to get all mired down.
Most anybody
selling that tractor on flatland would’ve been able to get $8,000 for it.
We paid only $4,000. The owner told Larry that several potential buyers
had backed out on account of the tractor’s mountainous, remote location.
The tractor weighs
about the same or a little more than his pickup. Larry believed his truck
would go over the mountain passes just fine, because it has 4.10 gears. And it would’ve, if... But let’s not get ahead of our story.
I looked at
AccuWeather, and saw that the weather in the Colorado High Country would be
nicer than it was here in Nebraska, for the next week. Still a little chilly in the higher
altitudes, where we would be, mostly.
If everything ran true
to form, our trip would undoubtedly call down a blizzard, and we’d be traveling
over the Great Divide, towing a heavy trailer loaded with a tractor, on snow
and ice. Why, we can cause deluges in the middle of deserts, if we happen
to set up a tent somewhere, even though they haven’t had rain in that location
for a decade. (The locals should pay us.) High wind gusts will
travel great numbers of miles to find us in campgrounds, just for the evil glee
of rocking our camper.
Hannah would take
care of the cats. Tiger has diet food in
his dispenser... and Teensy has regular food.
When I’m not here, I put Teensy’s bowl up on the counter where he can
get to it, but Tiger (supposedly) can’t. Tiger will eat Teensy’s dry food
if it gets left on the floor; he obviously doesn’t like diet food any
better than most of us. heh
I’ve also been
giving Teensy a can of soft cat food each day, half at a time. Poor kitty
needs to be fattened up a bit.
I posted some
pictures that night:
Thursday
morning found me getting ready for our church dinner. Larry had vanished. He was probably getting the trailer ready for
our trip to Colorado, but he’d forgotten his phone, so there was no way to find
out.
Amazingly, he got
home in time to get ready – and we even arrived a couple of minutes early for
the service! We had a short service at
11:00 a.m., with lots of music from our orchestra and band. Bobby wrote the music for and led the
band. After some congregational singing,
my nephew Robert read some verses and a bit of the story about the Pilgrims
(amazing to read of the hardships they went through), and then we went to the
Fellowship Hall for dinner.
Afterwards, I took a few pictures of this one and that
one. I found Norma talking with Lydia,
who was holding Baby Malinda. I talked to
the baby... and the sweet little dear as good as asked me to hold her,
leaning toward me and looking all dreamy-eyed... so I handed Hannah my camera, and
Lydia handed the baby to me. Little Malinda
snuggled all up and started the little cooing and humming she does when she’s
considering falling asleep. Her Mama used to do the very same
thing. 😊
I keep telling my
girls, “If Baby says she has a headache, please remove her head tourniquet!”
haha They assure me that the bands are very, very soft. And indeed,
Baby Malinda’s slid easily right off her head and wound up hanging from one of
my fingers when I cuddled her up against my cheek.
Home again, we got
the final few things ready to go. I
stacked up the pillows and blankets I always take along, went into the bedroom
to get more things, and came back out to find that Teensy had knocked the top
pillow off the stack, and was nicely nestled atop it!
Since it was too
late to save the pillowcase now, I let the anxious feline stay there. He was obviously trying various ploys to foil
our impending departure.
As soon as he
removed himself, I put a new pillowcase on my pillow and hauled it out to the
pickup. I came back in to find Teensy
perched right on my computer case! When I walked in the door, he squinted
at me and stretched out all across the top of the bag, paws outstretched to the
very edge, claws extended and curled around the piping.
He planned to hang
onto that thing for dear life!
We left home about 5:30 p.m. and headed into a gorgeous
sunset, planning to drive as far as we could.
I wished I could’ve stopped somewhere on a hillside... put my big lens
on... settled the camera on the tripod...
Instead, I had to take the shots whilst bouncing and jouncing down the
road in the truck. 🙃
An hour later, we narrowly missed a dead deer smack-dab
in the middle of the highway, poor thing.
We went through Grand Island and headed south toward
Hastings – and were immediately on the very roughest road known to man. It’s been that way for years. Decades,
really. Why don’t we ever learn?! There are other
routes, for pity’s sake.
I was trying to answer some email, but could barely type
because the bouncing. Here, I’ll show
you: Tehds bouncing dffmakes my
fi;hngers hit all sortsw of whstrsange letterjs inadzxcvertenmjtlyw;a...
fsdf;
See?
It’s the 25-mile span of four-lane between Grand Island
and Hastings, and it’s absolutely hideous. In years gone by, we’ve
broken a hitch on a big, sturdy trailer on that road, had blowouts, and made
things come loose and go to pieces inside our campers.
Larry just welded the hitch on this big trailer, and he
says it won’t break until the End of the Earth. I said we should check it
anyway. Of course, the trailer is also chained to the pickup, so if
anything should happen to the hitch, it wouldn’t come completely loose.
We finally arrived in Hastings, and stopped to check the
hitch. Larry was right; the hitch had held
tight, and showed not the faintest sign of stress. We turned west and traveled through southern
Nebraska on a smaller county road that wasn’t nearly so bumpy.
I like to
travel. It’s kind of an expensive thing to like, though... and we’ve done
it a little too often lately. At least I don’t have to buy film and pay
to have it developed, like I did in the Good Ol’ Days!
By a quarter ’til
nine, Larry, who’d thought he was up for driving all the way to Colorado
Springs that night, was munching on a mixed-chip combination of some sort, to
stay awake. The moon was low in the sky,
looking like a Cheshire cat grin. At
9:00 p.m., we drove through *Atlanta. Population 131.
* Atlanta,
Nebraska, that is. 😉
I hunted up motels in
McCook, 65 miles to the west. Using
booking.com, I
reserved a room online at the Economy Inn in McCook, Nebraska, and got it for
only $64.99, including tax. And they even have a big, free breakfast.
As I write this
letter, looking back at notes in my journal and in my email, my brain is
getting a bit boggled, because... when I wrote emails to people, Outlook, my
email program, put a timestamp on them according to which time zone we were
in. BUT! – now that we’ve returned home,
it has changed all the Mountain Time to Central Time! So if I’m not careful, I wind up writing that
we went through some western Nebraska town an hour or more before we went
through one farther to the east – and vice versa, when we were on the way home.
My computer thinks
it’s sooo smart, timestamping things according to where I am right now, never mind the fact that I
was somewhere else, in another time
zone entirely, when the item in
question was written.
If they can figure
all this out, why can’t they also add the
correct time zone?! Why am I not a
computer programmer???
(Answer: Because ah don’t know nuttin’ ’bout ’puter programmin’,
dat’s why.)
I remember when we
were on our way home from Canada, coming down through northern Idaho, that the
children were all delighted when we entered Pacific Time, and thought that
surely we could just take a few extra minutes to pop over to the ocean and
drive that beautiful road between the mountains and the sea that I’d told them
about, having gone that route with my parents when I was little. 😊
They were quite
surprised when I told them it was over 450 miles from Bonners Ferry, Idaho, to
Bellingham, Washington.
We got up very early the next morning, got all dolled up,
and headed to the breakfast nook. “Reckon we can eat enough to keep us full until suppertime?” I asked
Larry.
“You can always
carry some out with you!” suggested a friend.
“Yeah, oh boy!” I
replied. “Scrambled eggs in my pocket, a bagel in one sock, French toast
(complete with syrup) in the other. Mmmmm,
mmmmm.” 😆
Breakfast over, we loaded the pickup. I wonder if all the
other guests appreciated Larry rumbling his pickup with the big Cummins motor
up to our door, so we could load up? 😲
We were on the road a few minutes before the sun came up.
Larry hoped to get to Dove Creek by early
evening. But it was still 691 miles.
That’s 11 hours away – if one could average 62.81 mph. Apparently,
neither Android Mileage Log Tracker nor Rand McNally Mileage Calculator
understands anything at all about mountain travels.
A quilting friend who lives in middle western
Colorado, and who would like us to come visit her, wrote, “Am I gonna have to
find Larry something to buy on the western slope?”
Hee hee When we went to Florida, Larry, not wanting
the trip to be a total bust, got himself busy on Craigslist whilst in Daytona
Beach, and happily found himself a winch down near Ft. Pierce State Park.
It barely fit in the Jeep amongst all our other stuff. but, oh, we were
happy! 😆
At 8:55 a.m., we went through Benkelman, in southwest
Nebraska. By a quarter after nine, we
were in Wray, Colorado, the second little town over
the state line. Thirty minutes later, we
drove past the Yuma Feedlot – one of Colorado’s gigantic cattle yards. We’d
known it was coming, for miles. 😜
In Yuma, Larry put
some thick gooey stuff into the transfer case; the seal was leaking
slightly. It didn’t do the trick, but at least the leak never worsened.
By 10:40 a.m., we were
on the side of the road south of Yuma in a turnout by somebody’s mailbox. Something had gone wrong with the front
driveshaft. Larry began putting on overalls in preparation to scrambling
under the truck.
He’d brought
insulated overalls, and had to wear a jacket with them so as not to get his
shirt dirty, and it was 68° that morning. On our last trip, he brought
his lightweight summer coveralls, and
it snowed like everything, and the wind was sometimes blowing at 60 mph.
It turned out, the
constant velocity joint in the front driveshaft had gone kaput. Larry, after shinnying under the truck,
removed the front driveshaft, and after a delay of only about 15 minutes, we
were on our way again. We would just have
rear-wheel-drive from then on. If it looked like we might need
four-wheel-drive for some reason, we would fix it then.
On the plus side,
we would now get slightly better fuel mileage.
Larry doesn’t like
constant velocity joints. He replaces
them with regular U joints anytime they go bad.
“This evidently wasn’t
too serious of a malfunction,” I told some of the kids; “Daddy is already
singing again. It’s Put Another Log
on the Fire, but... it’s a song, nonetheless! 😄”
Amy asked if it was
windy where we were, as wind was blowing over 40 mph at home.
“No, not windy,” I told her. “Unless I stick my head out the
window at 65 mph.”
Several friends and
family members worried about the lack of a front driveshaft, and were afraid we
wouldn’t be able to get one, should we need it, in western Colorado.
I reassured them, “I
think we know where every Napa and O’Reilly’s store is, all over
Colorado! The thing is, we don’t need it if we don’t need
four-wheel-drive... and if we do, there are places to get it (Montrose,
Ridgway, Telluride, Dolores...). The
weather is supposed to be fine. We just
checked our mileage, and sure enough, we’re getting more miles to the gallon.
I’d hate to buy an unnecessary driveshaft, and then not have enough money
for fuel!”
It was a pretty day
that day, and we made fairly good time.
By 4:00 p.m., we reached Ordway, which is 52 miles east of Pueblo.
There were still 378 miles to Dove Creek. My mileage chart announced that
we’d make it in 6 hours and 47 minutes. It doesn’t have a clue about
Monarch Pass and a few other passes on the way.
One of our first
glimpses of the mountains included a herd of mule deer leaping across the road
at the top of a hill, silhouetting themselves against the late afternoon
sky. I captured several photos of the event. Some were blurry
(bouncy road, jouncy pickup, or maybe vice versa), but a few were pretty
good.
By the time we went
through Pueblo, the sun was low in the sky.
I made a
reservation at the Silver Ridge Lodge in Salida. Too bad that meant we’d be driving through
the canyon west of Cañon City in the dark! Camera in hand... but I couldn’t
take pictures. Boo-hoo.
We’d brought along
some food, and I fixed supper in our motel rooms the first two evenings. Sort of a funny menu, but it was good, and
filling, and we liked it just fine.
Plus, it was free. Supper #1:
beets, sweet potatoes, ciabatta rolls (baked right before we left home
Thursday) with peanut butter and blackberry jelly, pears, yogurt, and pear
nectar to drink. Supper #2: pickled beets (yeah, I know; heavy on the
beets – but that’s what was in the cupboard), chicken noodle soup, club
crackers and pretzel flip crackers (my favorite), more ciabatta rolls with
peanut butter and jelly, apples, V8 cocktail juice, and applesauce.
Each night at our
motels, we put those reusable ice cube thingamajiggers – they look like big
bubble wrap, but the bubbles are filled with something that freezes and stays
frozen most of the day – into the rooms’ little freezers, and the next morning,
we stuck it back in our cooler, and thus kept applesauce, yogurt, jelly, and V8
cocktail juice cold all day.
Saturday, we got
another early start after eating in the breakfast nook of the pretty Silver
Ridge Lodge. They had coffee... fresh-squeezed orange juice... bagels of various
flavors... apple cinnamon oatmeal... cinnamon rolls... oranges... yogurt...
Our spacious room
had a big front window – and also a large back window that looked out over a
beautiful valley, mountains in the background, and there was a smaller window
in the bathroom, too. I like windows. ☺
We pulled out of
Salida, and were soon heading up, up, toward Monarch Pass. It was a
beautiful, blue, sunshiny day.
We saw a sobering
sight at the bottom of the pass, on the east:
A semi-truck, having come from the west, was parked on the side of the
road. A bunch of the tires were blown out, having burned, and the flames
had caught part of the cab and the blue vinyl covering for the framed flatbed
on fire.
Amazing that the
driver had been able to stop his truck without wrecking, as that’s one mighty
steep grade, and his brakes were on their very last squeak. We’ve seen
plenty of trucks that weren’t so fortunate, over some of those mountain passes.
We stopped at the
gift shop at the top of Monarch Pass, and got a sweatshirt and a T-shirt for
Larry’s brother Kenny, who just had his 56th birthday. I found a soft hand-knitted headband with a
knitted flower on it – in bright fuchsia, perfectly matching my bright fuchsia hiking
shoes that Larry got me a couple of years ago.
I already have fuchsia gloves... now I need a fuchsia scarf... sweater...
Shortly after noon,
we drove past the Blue Mesa
Reservoir. It was so beautiful... and the day was lovely with blue skies... blue water...
the countryside all red and gold and green from various yucca plants, yews, and
red sumac. And for a bright, sparkling
counterpoint, there was a lot of snow on the mountains.
Soon we could see
the Uncompahgre Plateau up ahead, with a deep valley between us and the
plateau. Ranches dot the valley. I like the ones where the house
and barn are made entirely of big logs, sometimes with a stone
foundation.
On we went toward the
San Juans, the ‘Swiss Alps of America’. They are so beautiful, particularly
with snow glistening in the sunlight. On
the east side of the range runs ‘The Million Dollar Highway’. On the west?
‘The Last Dollar Road.’
By 3:00 p.m., we
were 60 miles from Dove Creek, driving
way up high beside a deep canyon. My map wouldn’t load, as we were out of
cell phone range (and thus, no Internet), so I didn’t know the name of the
canyon, or of the snowy mountain range we were heading toward, but it sure was
beautiful.
Hmmm... I just looked on Google Earth, and I see the
canyon stretches on for miles, and there are many side canyons with their own
names, and as the main canyon curves along beside the various rivers and
streams, its name changes, too. Just
listen to these names: Dolores Canyon,
Disappointment Valley, Blue Canyon, Nicholas Wash, Joe Davis Canyon, Morrison
Canyon, Bush Canyon, Hanks Pocket, Corral Draw...
The man who sold us the tractor had gone with his wife to
California over the Thanksgiving holiday.
We were to call a friend of his who lives in Dove Creek, and he would
lead us to the man’s house, way out in the boonies.
However, Larry’s GPS found itself a signal just before we
got to the gravel road we were supposed to turn on. Larry turned... stopped... and called the
man’s friend, who said he would meet us at the house. Larry told him exactly where we were. I
heard him me very own self.
But the friend went to the tiny town to the north that we
had already come through, and wandered around a bit, looking for us. There isn’t much town in which to wander
(population is only 177), so he soon headed back south. By the time he came bumping up the man’s
drive, Larry already had the tractor loaded and chained down, and I had made
friends with the people’s two cats. They
meowed and purred and rubbed their heads on my hands and ankles and kneecaps,
and begged for food and asked to get in the doors of the house. When I walked around taking pictures of this
and that, the smaller one followed me everywhere I went.
When Larry came close, they looked nervous, so he stopped
walking towards them, talked to them, and held out a hand. Before long, they were letting him pet them, too.
The man climbed out of his car, greeted us, and asked me,
“Have you seen the cats?” and when I said I had, he informed me, “They won’t
let you pet them.”
He barely got that out of his mouth before one of them
hurried over to wind her way around my legs.
I petted her. She purred.
“Well, I’ll be!” exclaimed the man. “I’ve known them for a good five years, and
they won’t let me pet them!” Then, “The other one isn’t as friendly as
this one.”
The ‘other one’ then strolled over in a dignified manner,
and proceeded to prove him wrong.
“You stinker!” the man remarked to the cat. (At least, I think he was addressing the cat.)
“Well, whatever you do,” he told me, “don’t touch his tail.”
I grinned. “Too
late. I already have.”
He looked surprised.
“And did he gitcha?” (southern Coloradoanese for ‘gitchoo’)
“No, he just purred,” I replied, and gave him a
demonstration. The cat played his role
accommodatingly.
Most cats do
like their tails petted, so long as they haven’t been mistreated already, and
so long as they know they can trust you.
“Well, they like women, but not men,” the man decided.
The cats, who obviously understood English and took
wicked delight in negating everything the man said, immediately frolicked
together to Larry’s booted ankles and demanded that he pet them.
I asked the man who fed the cats when the people were
gone, and said that I’d noticed that their bowl was empty, and they were
begging for food.
He shrugged carelessly.
“Oh, now and then they ask me to.”
But he didn’t seem inclined to do it at the moment.
When I fretted about it later, Larry assured me that
there were plenty of mice for them to eat.
Bah, humbug. Those cats weren’t begging me to put mice in their bowl. Some cats have life more difficult than
others, that’s a fact. 😟
After a bit of friendly chatter, during which we
determined that the man’s mother had not washed his mouth out with soap nearly
often enough (some people absolutely cannot talk without taking the Lord’s name
in vain, over and over and over
again), the man showed us inside his friend’s shop, where together they rebuild
old cars and make hotrods out of them.
Then he wished us farewell and safe travels, and we drove
into Dove Creek to fuel the pickup. Soon we were off to Cortez, where we would spend the night. The
sun was already dropping below the plateau to the west, and we certainly didn’t
want to head over Wolf Creek Pass in the dark, towing a tractor that weighs
6,500-7,000 pounds, on a trailer that weighs a good 3,000 pounds. At
least the trailer has new brakes – you’ll recall Larry replaced them on the
trip to Missouri/Kansas when we picked up the scissor lift.
The sunset was all
gold and scarlet and orange, and the sky above was pink and light aqua blue,
while farther to the east, there were bands of teal and turquoise, and finally,
cadet blue. Spectacular, it really was.
We got a very nice
room at the Super 8 in Cortez for only $53.45.
Our free breakfast the next
morning included Belgian waffles, and plenty of other things. Yummy.
And then we were heading
for Wolf Creek Pass, first stopping to fill a trailer tire that seemed to have
a slow leak. It was 28° that morning.
We made it over
Wolf Creek Pass with only two truck fires. 😲
First, on the way
up the western incline, the motor heated up some insulation against the engine
wall and caught it on fire. Fortunately, we were watching the thermostat,
and, though it wasn’t dangerously hot (or so we thought), we decided to stop at
the top and let it cool down a bit. When we got stopped, we spotted what
we thought was steam coming out from under the hood. When it went on for
another half a minute, Larry decided he’d better check – and found the
insulation on fire.
That was smoke, not
steam. He sloshed a bit of water on it, and put it out.
Then he ripped out all
the old and burnt insulation – still smoldering – so that wouldn’t
happen again.
Up there on the top
of the pass was a man with three young kids.
They donned snow suits, and headed into the sloped snowfield with their
toboggan. Someone had earlier made a big
snowman, and even bedecked it with a scarf and hat.
The man came to see
if we were having trouble, and if we needed help. By then, things were under control (or so we
thought), so Larry thanked him, told him what had happened, and said everything
was okay.
We appreciate
people like that.
We headed down the
eastern slope. Larry shifted down, but
we weren’t in four-low, and the engine wasn’t holding the vehicle with its
heavily-laden trailer back enough to avoid using the brakes. Larry used
them as sparingly as possible until we got to a turnout, where he intended to
put it in four-low. But that wasn’t
sparingly enough.
As soon as we were
stopped, I smelled brakes, Larry saw smoke coming from the rear, and we hopped
out to take a look. He checked the brake drums... they seemed to be
okay... but it kept smoking.
“Are you sure
it’s not on fire?” I asked.
Larry leaned down
and peered under again – and exclaimed, “It is!”
He dashed to grab
the water jug. I dashed to grab things of import out of the cab.
Larry scrambled
underneath the truck, and tossed the water on the flames. It went out.
It wasn’t the
brakes themselves on fire, it was the
shield around the brake drum, which was covered with dirt and oil. He cleaned it off so it wouldn’t happen
again.
He checked the
brakes; they were still okay. They’re nearly new. After a few
minutes to make sure the fire was really out and everything was still in
working order, Larry helped me put computer, camera bag, purse, tablet, and
coat back into the pickup, and we climbed back in to give this mountain pass another
try.
This time, with the
truck in four-low, we crept along on the shoulder, hazard lights blinking,
going steeply downhill ... until eventually we got to the bottom of the pass
and were safely in South Fork. Can you tell we’re hugging the shoulder
here?
Whew. I don’t like that much excitement. It made
my hands cramp somethin’ fierce.
We stopped at a
Wal-Mart in Alamosa and bought a couple of gallons of water and a brand-spankin’-new
fire ex-quing-disher (as Dorcas used to say). We got it out of the box
and put it under Larry’s seat where it’ll be easy to grab if we ever need it.
The above were my
ideas, not Larry’s (though he didn’t disagree). He, being the eternal
optimist, never imagines anything bad can possibly happen. I, being a
realist, imagine it can, and, most likely, will, given probable
circumstance. (And we always give our equipment ‘probable
circumstance’. heh) (Plus, Murphy rides with us, and his law
prevails.)
Leaving Alamosa, we
headed toward Blanca. Immediately to our north we could see the Great
Sand Dunes National Park. Just east of the Sand Dunes rises the Sangre de
Cristo mountain range, with Blanca Peak as its crowning summit. Blanca
Peak is the fourth highest summit of the Rocky Mountains of North America and
the State of Colorado, with an elevation of 14,344 feet. Its prominence
(how much it rises from the valley floor) is 5,325 feet, making it quite
impressive indeed.
The only pass after
Wolf Creek was La Veta, and it wasn’t too bad.
We ate at Subway in
Walsenburg, and a woman in the line ahead of us gave us a coupon, which saved
us about $8.00. We only paid $11 for two totally stuffed 6”
chicken/bacon/ranch sandwiches, a bowl of chicken noodle soup, four cookies,
and two tall glasses of iced tea, which we both refilled once.
After leaving
Walsenburg, we drove to La Junta, where I had booked a room at the Stagecoach
Motel. It was a really nice room, even nicer than advertised, with a king-sized
bed, a little kitchenette, and free breakfast in the morning. Price
including tax: $64.61. Not bad.
This
booking online has saved us quite a lot of money, and all of the rooms we stayed in were quite nice.
However... the Super 8 motel room where we stayed in Cortez was built by the Harlem Globe
Trotters.
Don’t get me wrong;
it was a nice room. But...
I am 5’ 2”.
The peephole on the door was a good foot above my head. Now, think about
that. If they’d put the peephole down where I could look out it,
tall people would also be able to use it, because they can bend down.
But I couldn’t so much as get a glimpse through it, even by hopping up
and down with all my might and main!
The towel bars were
up so high – way above my head – that every time I reached for a towel, the
water on my hands ran all the way down my arms. The hook on the back of
the bathroom door was right at the very, very top edge of the door. Now, that
was just dumb. Because... even if you could actually hang anything on that hook, it would then prevent
the door from going closed! Duh.
One more
oddity: the coat hanger was on the very
opposite corner of the room from the door, for some unfathomable reason. And it, too, was hung so high on the wall,
that I could barely reach the hangers.
The final straw was that those hangers would not come loose from the
hooks that held them on the rod, like most motel hangers do. Consequently, there was no possible way I
could hang anything on them. At least,
not without standing on my own suitcase, there wasn’t.
I told Larry, “Since
I can’t see out the peephole, if anybody knocks on the door, I’ll just fling it
open and box him in the nose first, and ask questions later. The axe
murderers look for the short people first, after all! – but they don’t expect
them to be fist-throwing li’l ol’ grannies.”
I’ve had some fun
putting my camera – on wide angle – up to the keyhole when people are walking
by, and taking a few shots. Talk about the ol’ fisheye effect!
I’m not a nervous
sort. Fact is, everywhere we go, we bump into nice people, mostly.
At that same Motel
for Tall People, there was a young man of indeterminate heritage trotting the
halls, speaking an Eastern language into his phone... and we kept winding up
behind him, as we carried in our luggage.
He invariably let doors – whether outer doors or inner doors – slam shut
right in our faces.
As we headed for
the outer door from our pickup with yet another load of stuff, the man strolled
around the corner of the motel, unlocked the door with his card, opened it, and
went through. We scampered forward to try to get in before the door went
shut, but.... CRASH! It was spring-loaded, and shut in our faces.
Again.
“I told you
to trip him, the next time you saw him!” I said to Larry, and laughed – right
when the door opened, and the kid’s friend or brother held it for us,
apologizing for the oaf. I suspect he heard me, judging by the way he was
grinning at me.
Somebody brought
their banshees to the motel that night, and they spent an hour or more racing
madly up and down the hallways, screaming bloody murder. They started up
again at sunrise. Fortunately, banshees must need to sleep, and they
somehow went to sleep about five minutes before we did, and got up about five
minutes after we got up. I’ll betcha other guests who were trying
to sleep were unimpressed, though.
We traveled with up
to nine kiddos, time and again... and sometimes we stayed in motels.
Guests were never the wiser, unless they actually saw us, because the
children were all quiet as little church mice (save for those times when Hester
and Lydia’s funnybones got the better of them, and they went to giggling their
cute little heads off, and their mother hissed, “Hush! Someone might be sleeping!”).
The pickup was working
fine, but by the time we got to La Junta, it was dark. We had a big load, and there were no
shoulders on that road. Made me noivous.
I’m telling you,
traveling by Jeep Commander is infinitely more relaxing!
But... in spite of
the troubles, it had been a beautiful, sunshiny day, with just enough thin
puffs of clouds in the sky to keep my photos interesting. That’s
important, you know. It got up to 60°, and felt warmer.
I edited a few
pictures before I hit the hay that night... a very few. I take pictures a whole lot faster than I
can edit them.
A friend who lives
in Colorado wrote to me, “As a side note, Wolf Creek pass is exciting in a
passenger car on a sunny day. I strongly dislike that pass. But it
does make Monarch look easy!”
We’ve been over the
pass in multiple types of vehicles, once towing a fifth-wheel camper, sometimes
with a pickup camper on, once in a Peugeot station wagon. And there were
a few times with my parents when I was little. I never recall the
journeys of my childhood being hair-raising – and that was even on the old
road!
My sister, being 20
years older than me, recalls family trips that were less than relaxing, with my
father doing all kinds of exciting things, such as driving his Jeep Willys up
the side of a mountain in Montana.
“I married John H.,”
my sister informed me, “because I’d had enough of scary, impulsive things, and
he’s careful and cautious.”
“Well,” I retorted
to my sister, “by the time I came along, Daddy was careful and cautious,
and I missed out on all the fun stuff --- so I married Larry!”
And then, of
course, we laughed like idiots.
We were later than
we would’ve liked the next morning, leaving La Junta. The proprietor was
a friendly Greek man, and we got stuck in the breakfast nook for a while.
Larry is friendly, too, you see. I’m
more inclined, when I’m in a hurry, to smile politely and run for my life – in
the middle of a sentence, if need be. But I was penned in the
corner!
Larry decided to change the leaking tire on the trailer before
rather than after it blew. He did it in the spacious motel parking
lot before we left. Better than alongside a shoulderless road somewhere. The tire was wearing oddly,
and in danger of blowing out. He thinks the axle is bent a little. He tightened up the bearings, and hoped that
would suffice until we got home.
I’m thankful that
Larry knows what to do in just about any given instance, and without much
fanfare, just does it.
Once upon a time,
when Lydia was two years old, and we were stranded atop a mountain in Montana
with a broken fan belt, she said, “My Daddy can fix anything.” She
made that statement calmly but emphatically, from her perch in her car seat,
while coloring in her little coloring book.
It was 78° at 11:30
a.m. in Lamar, and by the time it was noon, the temperature had risen to 80°.
By 2:00 p.m., we’d
reached the small village of Sheridan Lake, population 86. The lake for which it is named is what we call a ‘pond’, and it’s alkaline,
with the accompanying snowy white shores.
There are a few
doublewides and fabricated homes strewn about willy-nilly – and what looks like
a couple hundred big shiny silver silos sparkling and shining in the sunlight,
and a few tall white elevators. Plus, there was one convenience store,
which we were happy to see.
We stopped and went
in.
It was fairly
large, and stocked like a small grocery store. There was a little kitchen
where they cooked pizza, spicy breaded chicken, and .. ? At the back was
a room with tables and chairs where people could eat the snacks they’d
purchased.
But the truly
unusual thing about this Store out in the Sticks was the floor: it was
made of that textured rubbery stuff like you can get for the bottom of a shower.
It covered the
entire floor of every room in the store, from wall to wall. And it was bright yellow.
But it wasn’t
affixed to the floor! There were lumps and bumps and rises all over the
place. So Larry and I walked in – and then proceeded to trip and stagger
our way through the store, all the way to the back, where Larry got some
chicken (I called it spicy breaded Styrofoam) and I got a bottle of orange
juice. Then we floundered and tripped our way back to the checkout stand,
greeted and paid the friendly clerk, stumbled and lurched our way to the door,
and off we went again. I think we doubtless looked exactly like drunken
sailors.
Half an hour later,
we approached Cheyenne Wells, population 842. Practically a city!
It was 93 ½ miles to Wray, population
2,367 (practically a metropolis!), the last town in Colorado (other than Laird,
population 47) before we would cross into Nebraska.
The previous day’s
engine insulation fire had melted an air conditioner hose, and it was hot
that day; so Larry snipped off the melted part, rerouted the hose, and clamped
it back on. We were back in air conditioning again.
Cheyenne Wells looked
to consist mostly of silos and elevators, too – and they must all be full,
because operators are starting to make big piles of grain on the ground, and
covering them with huge white tarps. It was easy to understand where all
the grain came from, because for hundreds of miles, we’d passed through
flatland farming, and most of the harvest is over.
Tired of riding, we
stopped in Burlington and walked around a park for a little while. It was a commemorative park with lots of
plaques along the walkway telling the history of the place. The playground equipment was rocket-themed,
because one of the astronauts came from that town.
“At least the
pickup didn’t really get too hot,”
Larry remarked offhandedly as we strode along.
“Nothing actually got ruined.”
I stopped walking
and stared at him. “Let’s be clear,
here,” I retorted. “When flames are
shooting out of the engine... and when flames are shooting out from the brake
shield... that’s too hot.”
He laughed.
He laughed.
Another thing
that’s too hot is a long-sleeved sweater on an 80° day. When we got back into the pickup, I pulled up
Google maps, zoomed in on Burlington, typed ‘Thrift Store’, and found one not
more than half a dozen blocks away. It
was a fairly large store for such a small town, but... they’d put away all their summer things! I found only two short-sleeved sweaters
in that entire store. I got them. Paid $7.00 for both.
Already, the sun was
low in the sky, and it was only 3:45 p.m.
It was about a
quarter ’til eight when we got to McCook. We ate supper at the
Coppersmith Steakhouse. We didn’t know until we walked in that there was
a lounge in a room at the opposite side of the building. One guy in there
had been having Happy Hour too long. Fortunately, he was a happy
drunk. Every couple of minutes, he laughed loud and long. And even
more fortunately, he took his departure about the time our food arrived.
What is there about
being drunk that makes an idget switch around the words ‘charming’ and
‘obnoxious’?
Anyway, he went
away, and we enjoyed our meal. I got a
chicken fajita salad (it was humongous!), and Larry had roast beef and mashed
potatoes on a hoagie roll.
Then we shared a
piping hot peach cobbler with maple nut(?) ice cream on top. They put it
in a long banana-boat-shaped dish with a square plate underneath and spoons in
each end. We tried to be careful that we didn’t bump heads... but
sometimes, if you really want your fair share, you just have to throw all
caution to the winds. 😂
When the meal was
over, it was 10 ’til 9, and about 220 miles home. Larry thought he could make
it easily. That was because he was full, happy, and wide awake.
That latter bit doesn’t always last very long. 😏
A friend, upon hearing of our
excitement on Wolf Creek Pass, wrote to ask, “Do they have run offs (that’s not
what they call them, but can’t remember what they are, lol) where a truck can
run off the highway and up a hill to get the truck stopped?”
Yep. Runaway
truck ramps. When I was little, traveling with my parents, we saw a truck
that had had to take the runaway ramp. It had just happened, and smoke
was rolling out from the brakes. We’d been smelling his brakes for the
last thirty minutes, and then we started seeing strange skid marks on the
curves, and Daddy said very quietly, “If he doesn’t get to that runaway ramp
soon, he’ll be in the canyon.”
We were all holding
our breath and praying for the poor trucker, whoever he was. You can’t imagine our relief when we found him
on that sandy ramp, buried beyond the hubs half-way up the hill. We
stopped to talk to him, to make sure he was all right. He was just climbing
out of his truck, and he was shaking awfully, and could hardly talk.
Daddy took his arm and talked to him for a while, and he calmed down. My
father had a way about him.
Midnight-thirty
found us at Bosselman’s Truck Stop in Grand Island. Larry checked the oil,
and added some.
The new tire he put
on the trailer this morning was also wearing oddly. The wheel is
noticeably out of alignment with the other wheels (it’s a triple axle) (Mr.
Gates [or maybe Al Gore] thinks I should change the word ‘axle’ to ‘axel’ when
it comes after the word ‘triple’, since he evidently knows all sorts of things about
skating maneuvers, but nothing about trailers with three axles).
When one is worried
about one’s tires and one’s heavily-laden trailer, one notices every bump. And believe me, there are a lot of bumps
between Dove Creek and Columbus. Ugh, I
hate big, bad bumps! – they can cause a tire to blow out, or something to come
loose.
But... so far, so
good. We got some Schwan’s soft-serve
chocolate chip mint ice cream at Bosselman’s Truck Stop in Grand Island. Mmmmm...
I can’t eat much; ice cream makes my stomach hurt. Besides, it was keeping Larry awake; so I’ll
let him have my share.
We got home at a
quarter ’til two, tired, but safe and sound.
And, as a final note, there were
no blizzards.
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
P.S.: As I reread this letter, I thought, Hmmm,
it sounds like we said ‘There, there,’ then just went away and left that
trucker who’d gone up the runaway ramp to his own devices. Sort of
like the verse that admonishes those who tell poor people, “Depart in
peace! Be ye warmed and filled!” – ‘notwithstanding they gave them not
those things which were needful’.
Nice words, no
action.
So I’ll finish the
story: Since it was before the days of cell phones, Daddy offered to take
the man to the closest place where he could get help, but the man had already
called from one of those phones they put beside the road near the runaway truck
ramps, and a wrecker was on the way. In fact, if I remember correctly, I
think we may have waited until the wrecker arrived before we left.
There. And
that’s The Rest of the Story.
.
