Wild Horse Ranch -- July 2009

Wednesday, July 1, we drive the hour to Grants, NM, to try to get the generator fixed. The shop says it will take a week. So we still have no water. We're holding out until Thursday when we get electricity to get water.

Thursday morning. An inspector dude comes by to check the electrical. He says that Ricky, who is supposed to turn on our electric this morning was called away to AZ and won't be able to turn it on. Nevertheless, Ricky did come and turn on the electric.

	Large -- Medium First Ricky stoped by the power pole out on the road to hook things up there.
	Large -- Medium Then he drove down our driveway to the well area.
	Large -- Medium Here's the electrical panel near the well that the electrician installed, with the meter that Ricky is about to install sitting on top.
	Large -- Medium Here is the brand new electric meter, installed, ready to go.
	Large -- Medium If you look on the side and see a little red light, you know the meter is getting power and any problems aren't the electric company's fault. I don't see the red light in the picture, but we could see it in person.
	Large -- Medium Check it out: the light in the wellhouse turns on!

At this point I should mention another thing that we noticed when we first arrived. The first thing we saw was a squirrel (or chipmunk, or something) peeking out the window of our trailer at us! Then when we opened the trailer, we saw the floor of the trailer was covered in rat poo. Nasty! We cleaned it up at the time. But now that we had electricity, we got the brilliant idea to try running the air conditioner on the trailer. We quickly found out where the rodents had been living. They tore up the liner, chewed on the vent, and brought in grass to make themselves comfy.

	Large -- Medium The inside of the trailer air conditioner, where the rodents made themselves comfy while we were gone.

So now we have power without the generator noise. This is good, but the well STILL doesn't work. Jason spent 2 hours down in the well pit checking all the electrical connections and figuring out how everything worked. He finally figured out that one small part in the pump control was busted, he bypassed it, and now the well works.

	Large -- Medium The front of that part.
	Large -- Medium The back of that part.

So we got the water running at the well. But we still couldn't figure out how to get the water up to the trailer. (There's a spigot up there that the water's supposed to run to.) So, we had yet another night with no shower and no dish washing.

The next morning (Friday, July 3) we discovered a mysterious valve that switches on the water at the spigot. Great!

	Large -- Medium This is the valve. It looks just like a skinny pvc pipe stuck in a larger pvc pipe. It doesn't look like a valve. This is a shot down the larger pvc pipe to see if we could tell what was at the bottom.

So now we hook up the water to the trailer, and first thing the kitchen faucet explodes. Go figure. I think I've got it screwed back together, but the very next thing I hear water running in the front closet, and I see water seeping out on the floor there. (That's where the water heater is.) We unscrewed the cover, and quite obviously there was a HUGE gash in the hot water tank.

	Large -- Medium Here's the hot water heater with the huge gash in it. As we pumped water to the trailer it just flowed into the tank and then out the gash. Useless!

So not only did we have no hot water, but also no obvious way to bypass the tank. Even if there was, who wants to shower and do dishes in cold water? So we headed out to Albuquerque, and amazingly Camping World was able to sell us a new hot water heater.

	Large -- Medium The box front.
	Large -- Medium The box side.

So, on the way home from getting the new water heater in Albuquerque, it started raining. I guess we were hoping we could still get back to our place, but in hindsight, what we should have done is stop in Grants at a hotel for the night. But it was raining, and we started down the dirt roads. Jason was driving quite slowly, as it was slick out there. Once past the mailboxes it got really slick, and Jason was seriously going 5 mph. Still, it was so slick we slid off the road into the (fortunately) shallow ditch on the side of the road. We were stuck. The car would not move. So, with the back of the XTerra full of the old and new hot water heaters and us and the three dogs, we decided to get some sleep there in the car on the road. We ended up putting the medium size dogs on the front seats so Jason and I could lie down in the back, at least the part of the back not filled with stuff. We were there about 4 hours before we decided it hadn't been raining for a while and we'd try driving again. Needless to say we weren't sleeping particularly well.

	Large -- Medium This is a picture, taken at the end of our trip, of the skid marks where we slid off the road that night!
	Large -- Medium Mud caked on the tires from that drive.

After the 4 hours, it had dried up just enough to get out of the ditch and keep moving, though it was still quite muddy. We drove along for a while at 5 mph, and then we encountered a puddle. It was quite a large puddle, spanning the entire road, about 30 feet long, and 6 or so inches deep. I can only imagine how muddy the bottom of that puddle was! We got out of the car and looked at it and debated whether it was safe to go through it, or whether to try going around by another route, or whether just to walk to the trailer from there (about a mile.) It was tense for a few minutes, but we decided to go through the puddle. (Would being stuck in the middle of the puddle be any worse than our present situation?) But the XTerra performed like a champ and got us through to the other side, and we made it to the trailer. I was never so glad to see it!

It was Friday that we were in Albuquerque, and then Saturday was the Fourth, and the big Wild Horse Ranch party. We were slightly scared to go out on the roads that afternoon, after our experience of the night before, but we tried it, and it wasn't too bad. The party seemed pretty nice, though it would have been a lot more fun if we had known ANYONE there. The pavilion it was at is by a nice lake, and they had cooked up a bunch of BBQ beef, ribs, and chicken. Then there was all the other food that people had brought, including about a dozen different kinds of potato salad. LOL, I'll know what not to bring to the party next year.

Before the food they even had a local well installer talk to us all about how our well systems work. It was a really good idea, and a nice touch. It probably would have been more informative, though, if Jason hadn't spent 3 hours the day before in the well pit figuring out everything on his own. :P

	Large -- Medium Here's the pavilion where the party was.
	Large -- Medium The pavilion was by this nice lake.
	Large -- Medium Jason is pointing out a shoreline feature -- apparently the water had come up to this point sometime previously.
	Large -- Medium Gwen by the lake. (I'm not fat; I'm pregnant!)

So back to the water heater. Before the party we tried installing it and realized we didn't have some hardware we needed. We decided we could stand one more day without showers, and we'd go into Grants Sunday. So Sunday we went to Grants, got hardware, started to install it, and then REALIZED WE GOT THE WRONG STUFF. At this point I'd pretty much given up on a shower, so I wasn't nearly as upset as the day when we found the busted water heater. But the good news is Jason poked around our stuff up there, and managed to cobble together some stuff, and GOT THE HEATER WORKING! Amazing. That first shower felt wonderful.

	Large -- Medium The new, functioning water heater!
	Large -- Medium The back of the water heater.

Monday was then pleasantly uneventful, and we decided to head home Tuesday afternoon. We stayed in Moab, UT, for the night, and then pressed all the way home Wednesday, getting in at 2am Thursday morning.

	Large -- Medium Genubi has spotted something in the tree!
	Large -- Medium The view from the ridge.
	Large -- Medium Genubi and Schamail take off to explore.
	Large -- Medium Schamali comes running back.
	Large -- Medium Cute picture of Schamali chewing on -- something.
	Large -- Medium Gwen (pregnant!) along the road.
	Large -- Medium There are lots for sale, occasionally, if you want one.
	Large -- Medium Another lot for sale.
	Large -- Medium Cool downed tree, I think maybe by the pavilion where the party was.
	Large -- Medium The impressions of water droplets were preserved in the mud in our driveway.
	Large -- Medium We saw this herd of wild donkeys out on Meghan's Trail.
	Large -- Medium Zoom of donkeys.
	Large -- Medium Jason and the dogs, heading down Palomino Road.
	Large -- Medium Gwen headed up to our overlook.
	Large -- Medium Sunset from the overlook.
	Large -- Medium Gwen and Jason at the overlook at sunset.
	Large -- Medium Genubi and Schamali at the overlook at sunset.
	Large -- Medium Taun We at the overlook at sunset.
	Large -- Medium Gwen and Genubi enjoying the view.
	Large -- Medium Genubi
	Large -- Medium Taun We
	Large -- Medium Check out the large image -- this is a shot of our trailer and red-roofed shed from the main road.
	Large -- Medium Here's a zoom shot from the same location.
	Large -- Medium We need to fix this table leg next time we are there.
	movie