GRAND CANYON, and bust…

We made it to the Grand Canyon last night about 9pm after leaving Gallup< NM at 2pmish. Today we woke up early and made a light breakfast, and then found the hike to the Trancept and Bright Angel Point. BEAUTIFUL. Spent hours there, just looking and taking photos, and looking around the Lodge, and looking at the chipmunks and a deer.

Tom had seen a mule earlier in the morning, just walking around the campground. It’s a beautiful day. I even had enough bars to call my dad from the Grand Canyon. He and I were here on the south rim in 1978, and we took a mule ride 1/2 way down. We could see that path from this side. Tom was also here once before with his Uncle Bob, and they walked down and back up. Yikes. So then a slow day of showers and siesta, and we will go back to the rim for sunset in about 2 hours.

But let me go back to Gallup… We left Gallup about 8pm on Sunday night after leaving Santa Fe. We gassed the Cacafuego, and were going to drive to the Petrified Forest and camp so we could see that first thing Monday and then come out here, but at about 9:30pm I was having trouble with the Transmission. I couldn’t get out of low gear, and it was quite unnerving. So we tried to pull off, but the road we pulled off on was frightfully dark so we got back on Route 40 West and finally limped off at Chambers, where we thought we had seen a sign for an RV park. By then my nerves were SO rattled, that I just turned around and we parked in the lot of a Trading Post/gas station for the night, praying that someone would show up in the morning.

Well, we had a batch of visitors all night long for what seemed like such a deserted spot: two truckers who didn’t like the price of gas, two motorcyclists who didn’t mind it, and other cars just kept coming and going all night long.

Tom finally got up at 5:30 or so and took the moped to a Mobile station we’d seen on the other side of the exit, but there were no service stations for MILES, so we called AAA. After much negotiations, we found an independent tow company who would tow us back to Gallup, and we’d see.

But the first thing the tow truck driver did was disconnect the drive shaft, ’cause it messes up the transmission if you don’t. Remember the tow we got back in f……g Rockdale? No drive shaft disconnect there… So back to Gallup to a Mom and Pop Service place and after much wrangling…They first jumped the battery and took her for a drive, started up nice then, but why running so hot? And while it was still cold, she would shift, but once hot, she would not. Well, it seems that little handyman fan is not enough for that big of an engine and why didn’t the guys in Rockdale notice that?

And yes, the transmission was shot, and by the way, I’ve never liked how the brakes felt. So do we put more money or consider our options. But wait, we have reservations for tonight at the GRAND CANYON! So we rented a car, threw all the camping gear in it and high tailed it out the the Grand Canyon, after deciding that we will leave the Cacafuego there for junk. We will deal with that when we get back, the nice folks there were good enough to let us leave her there.

Options are: buy something or rent something. Fortunately, Flagstaff is big enough we can do either. We will keep you posted, but that was the biggest.

Santa Fe was great, it was Spanish Market, just like when Tom and I were there 4 years ago. Great art, and food, and many things to look at. We had such a nice day, and such a nice siesta in the Cacafuego after the all night drive. It was so much fun being “home” again. We are all saddened by the pulling of the plug, yet strangely relieved that the stress is off. THanks for all the posts and emails. They get me through.

-Ann