"Arby's" SHORT Off Road Trip

I was in the beautiful little town of Woodland Park, CO on Friday 13th
doing an estimate. The next stop was Monument, CO. The GPS said it was
only about 15 miles away. I called my next customer and he asked me how I
was coming there. When I told him, all he said was............"well, it
is very scenic".

I headed out and it quickly turned into a one lane dirt road through Pike
National Forest. Nice road and very "scenic". Only 8 miles to go. Not
bad. The further I went the worse it got. Got too deep into this mess
when I realized only dirt bikes and Jeeps belong here but I kept going
hoping it would get better. When I finally got to within 4/10 mile of
what I thought would be a better road it really got bad. I stopped and
walked part of it to check it out. Looked bad but I decided I could make
it................and I did...............sort of. Got within 1/10 mile
of the hopefully better road and steam started rolling. Had to keep going
at this point or no one would ever find me.

Made it up onto a relatively good looking road and engine started heating
up so pulled over and gave up. Cell service was horrible but after
several tries finally was able to let Good Sam know about where I was.
After several disconnected calls it was determined a wrecker would be
there in an hour. Fast forward to many other frustrating disconnected
calls and the wrecker finally made it there in 3 hours.

At last, all is well! Not on your life. The next 1 1/2 hours to get towed
over the worst 8 miles of rutted, washboard, switchback roads you ever
saw. There were a few switchbacks and ruts that the driver considered
unhooking the car and driving it through.

We finally made it to a shop back in Colorado Springs at 5:30. Great
folks and they assured me they would fix me up on Saturday and took me to
pick up a rental car.

I went by the shop on Sat morning and the tech working on my car advised
me that I should "never buy a lottery ticket with my luck". There was
about a 1 1/2" square opening in some sheet metal in the lower left
corner of my car which is the only place a rock could possibly have
gotten to my radiator.

Great service and a mere $675 later and all is well. I needed to flush my
5 year old antifreeze anyway.

Lesson learned................the GPS can go places that a passenger car
should not go.

"Arby's" Long Road Trip

Had an exciting little 325 mile round trip today to the metropolis of
Eads, CO.............population 300. Got to drive 14 miles down a dirt
county road. That is...........it was dirt except for places in the
middle where the weeds were up to my hood. I killed lots of Grass
Hoppers.

This idiot wanted me to estimate the hail damage on his four vehicles.
They were solid mud up to the windows. Four wash jobs would have been
worth several hundred dollars to him!

I have heard that route 50 (I think) in Nevada is "America's Loneliest
Highway". Obviously they never heard of route 96 in Eastern Colorado!
Sometimes I drove for 10 or 15 miles without ever seeing a house or
another car. No rest areas but not a problem. Just stop in the middle of
the road (which I did) and do what you gotta do. You can see 10 miles
either way if a car was coming.

One amazing thing was the "stored/abandoned" railroad cars. I found out
they have been there for over a year. I clocked one string of them and
it was an amazing 11.7 miles long! There were two more strings that were
a mere 3.7 & 2.8 miles long. I wonder what all that scrap metal is worth?

I am glad THE gas station in Eads was open or I would be stranded there.
Looks like the Texaco along the way might have been out of gas.

"Arby" and "Blondie" find THE Restaurant

Have you ever had a lovely steak dinner "a mile high" in a KC97 tanker? We just did. Check it out.

Solo's "The Airplane Restaurant"

Colorado Springs, CO

(Click to visit the web site)

Here are some pics of a real motley crew

October 2009

(L-R) Ray-"Arby"; Lora-"Blondie" ; Terry, -Mossrocker" ; Danette-"Songbird" ; Judy-"WW" & Joe-"Golfin' Joe


They will let anyone in here...	But the music is good....

...Real Good!	Yeah!

Thanks Terry for the photos

Great Rally....Bad Ending

JJ Weber, Heybob & I left the rally Sunday headed for Tunica, MS. Had a
little trouble in Memphis. Some Idiot (here after known as "Mr I") tried
to pass me on the right side. I was in the right turn lane and he was on
the berm. Lora started screaming "there is a guy on our right side and he
is going to hit us". I could not see him. As the berm tapered down to
nothing he tried to cut in front of me and clipped my right front. That
must have been enough to turn him sideways and I hit him squarely in his
left front door with my left front. I never saw him at all until I saw
this car spinning across 4 lanes of heavy traffic and hit a cement wall.
I don't know how he did not hit another car.

The big bang noise sounded like it came from the rear. I pulled over and
looked at my rear camera and the car was gone. I ran back to the rear and
the car was there and no damage. I had the right turn signal on which put
the right camera on instead of the rear. Now I am really confused what
the noise was. Found it in the front. See the attached pictures.

The cops investigated and determined they could not issue a ticket since
there were "conflicting stories". Mr I said I turned into him and there
were no witnesses. JJ & Heybob were behind me and they couldn't see what
happened and not one good soul in Memphis bothered to stop as a witness.
Anyway, the cops said our insurance companies would have to sort it out.
Thank God Mr I had insurance!.

While the cop was writing his report he was bent over Mr I's hood
writing. I maneuvered Mr I within ear shot of the cop and starting asking
him some questions. I said weren't you in this berm lane trying to pass
me on the right. He said "yea but I had my signal on" (like that
mattered). The cop stood up, looked at me and said "did he just say what
I think he said?". I said yes but he had his turn signal on and laughed.
Mr Cop said "that changes things" and promptly wrote him a ticked for
improper lane change. Whew!! I am off the hook insurance wise at least.

I need a new front cap, generator door, camera and some inner structure
repair. Talked to a RV Body shop today in Dallas and they say it could
take 3 to 6 weeks to get the parts and the repair will take about 4
weeks. This sort of thing has been my main worry ever since we went full
time over 6 years ago. Where in the heck do we live for 4 weeks?

Oh well, It will work out somehow. Compared to the poor folks on the Gulf
Coast, this is nothing. The good news is, no one was hurt and our "home"
is still usable and drivable although not too pretty. Funny.........just
about an hour earlier at a rest area Joe made the comment to me how nice
our motor home looked with no dents, scratches etc after 2 years. Maybe
it was all Joes fault????