A long weekend to begin with turned longer around the corner unexpected with snowy delights and tires coming off of the Toyota Dolphin while on I10 heading out of Las Cruces this morning towards home. El Paso and south has been snowed upon and last night we chose to stay here rather than head home, which was followed by the rim shearing off all of the lug nuts on the left rear tires that held up that portion of the camper thus enabling to be mobile. This, quite obviously, rendered us impotent and stranded.
HOWEVER, well, the round started from Alpine Wednesday morning, leaving out much later than desired, heading north.... Slept in Rockhound State Park that night, and left out for the Gila Wilderness the next day. A long journey that is, two hours by state estimates, quite a bit longer in a small motorhome... That evening ended at the town of Gila Hot Springs, situated within the Wilderness and home to a small RV campsite with wonderful hot "geothermally heated" water with which I bathed after a sumptious Thanksgiving repast of steak cooked in wine and pepper. The next night we headed back towards the parks outer borders and camped down a gravel road around a corner and up a hill... We awoke to the most luscious snow.... This was after getting lost the night before... Lost... on foot... in the woods.... Seriously lost.... Scary lost... remind me to tell you about it....
For tonight, I am back in Las Cruces and praying ferverently that the gentleman who has the camper can and will fix it in the morning first thing. He has to get back to work, and so do I... But I AM grateful. And thankful.
Many things that could have gone wrong did not. We did not stay lost in the woods longer than an hour (we took a ten minute hike that went horribly awry... and I didn't take any water... we weren't going that far.. and sun was setting... One of the more frightening lapses of intelligence I've had). The rim did not come off in the middle of nowhere, as it could have... considering that most of our journey takes us through uninhabited (for hours) stretches.... The RV pulled off the freeway for me simply and without fuss, rather than blowing out and knocking us into another traveller... We found an open tow company that had the right kind of truck.... They found a person who thinks he can fix the rim and the lug nuts no problem, and will start on it tomorrow... I had enough money (so far) to get the things done.... The Sunday tow job and trip to the hotel and drop off of the vehicle was only 115, much less than anticipated.... I did not die a horrible death in a vehicle or in the woods...
So, yeah... This weekend has been LONG... And it isn't over yet... I'm in a hotel on his laptop brought to finish work he couldn't do because we didn't make it home as I tippity type... But I'm thankful... To the core.....
flat tire
