The Countdown

 

So Mom has been in failing health for awhile. She had her leg broken by a horse in the spring. They had to put a metal contraption on her leg to hold it in place while she healed. It was broken across where her artificial knee was inserted inside the lower leg bone to make things even more complicated.

Well she spent all summer in an extended care facility - Cascadia. Per medicare, the stay was limited to 100 days. When she was released one of the caretakers told me that “Your mother is a very sick woman. Most people don't stay here the entire 100 days. People are generally here for a month, maybe two. She used the entire 100 days and probably should have stayed more.” So a not so re-assuring sendoff.

Also while she in Cascadia she had to be taken to the hospital multiple times for respiratory distress. Fluid was collecting around her lungs making it difficult to breath. They gave her treatment – including actually using a needle to remove the fluid.

So then she was released to Solstice which was recommended by Xochitl, the social worker at Cascadia. Later we found that this was probably not the best place to go, but we went with it because it was recommended by a “professional.” She probably was not in there for more than week when she had to go to the hospital again. Oh, and during the 1^st stay, her heart stops but they are able to bring her back. She comes back to Solstice and after another week or so, she is returned to the hospital.

Then I get a call, she had a stroke. She could not sit up, talk, or move very much. She could press their fingers to answer yes and no and that was about it. The doctor explained that she was on blood thinners and that the treatment for a stroke was blood thinners. So it was a delicate balance to dissolve the blood clot.

Well she wakes up after sleeping for 12 hours and it is almost like nothing happened. She did not recall anything about the previous 24 hours. But just had some minor speech problems. Still she again cheated death – Mom is like a cat with 9 lives.

An after effect of the stroke is that sometimes she speaks in riddles. You have to stop and figure out what she is really trying to say. “Where are you going to eat” means I am hungry. “When is Matt going to be here?” means when is Chad arriving (she just got the name mixed up).

But now they are recommending hospice. It was a tough decision to make, but I said yes it is probably the way to go given her declining health. She had wanted to get stronger and go to Houston. That way she could be close to Heather. But with her poor health, travel just wasn't possible.

The doctor recommends Mesilla Valley hospice. So I say OK, lets move her there. But after about 4-5 days I get a call. Your mother is no longer in declining health, she has stabilized, and if she wants to stay here it will be $500 per day! What the ??? I was not very happy, I had called Solstice after the move and had the hospital bed, air, bed table, etc. all taken away. So now I had to call them back and say – nevermind, she is coming back after all.

By this time she has been in at least 5 different medical facilities in Las Cruces. It almost felt like she was being passed around so that everyone got a bite of the pie!

Now she is getting hospice care only it is at Solstice. My daughters, Vanessa and Chelsea, come down to visit her for about 5 days. They bring her treats to eat and have a good time visiting as well as hiking nearby hiking paths in the Las Cruces area.

Then I get the call that she has like 2 to 5 days left. So Heather comes to Las Cruces to stand watch and then I drive down a few days later. And she has up and down days, but does not appear close. We both concur over lunch that her time is not near. To borrow from Mark Twain – rumors of her eminent demise have been exagerated. Heather has to head down back home after about a week and that leaves Becky and I to stand watch.

Now there was one day where Becky said, “I don't think that she will make it through the night.” We come back the next day and she is sitting in her chair eating breakfast! And that has been the pattern for the last 2 weeks. Good days and bad days but she is hanging on. At times, she seems to be getting stronger.

Chad, like the girls, took some time off work to come visit grandma about this time. We also were able to work in a hike and visit a couple of nice restaurants. Joe was unable to make the trip as he had used all of his vacation. But we were able to do a video call with Joe and his family so that sufficed for them to give their regards - still she perseveres.

One theory we have is that they stop all medication, except medication that gives comfort. So maybe there was a conflict with all of the medications that she was on and by removing all the medications she is actually healthier. But it could be that she is just not ready to go. She has a strong mind, but a weak body.  

She is frequently asking to go to the ranch, outside, or just for a drive. I tell her that it just isn't possible until she gets stronger.  After I wrote this the caregive at Solstice said that she will try to arrange a bus ride for next week.  We shall see how this adventure goes.

So today the hospice nurse calls and says that Mom now has up to 6 months. Given their track record, I am not willing to bet any money on their prediction. However she sure seems to have 9 lives like a cat. We are going to the ranch for a week or so to see how things go. Then we will test the wind and see how it feels before we decide to stay or go home.

But this has opened my eyes to healthcare – or lack thereof to the elderly. Some bureaucrat decided that 100 days is the right target for the type of care that Cascadia provided. Then the deal with the 1^st hospice outfit. She wasn't in there a week and then we have to move her out. Why was I advised to move her there in the 1^st place!  I increasing find it difficult to rely on professionals. It certainly seems to very important to do your own homework.  But for now the countdown is on hold.  

Operation Crazy Horse Roundup

 Well my Mother has always had a love of horses and we have been pleading with her to scale back operations since she has gotten into her 80's. All to no avail, she had actually gotten hold of not one but two stallions while we were gone from our last visit. So it seems that her intentions were to keep the horse operaton going until she was just physically unable to do it any longer. 

That finally happened this spring. She had a filly that she was going to sell and so it needed its shots. She had Robert help her load the horse and take it to the vets at Silver City.  In order for the vet to work with it she had to have a halter on it.  So she got Robert to hold it with a rope around the neck. Meanwhile she got into the trailer with the filly and attempted to put a halter on it.

This filly had not been worked with and so it was very skittish. Mom fell which excited the horse even more and it began jumping - fighting to get loose. It landed on Mom's leg several times.  Breaking the leg just below the knee.  What made this worse was that she has artifical knees and it broke at a diagonal across where the joint was inserted into the bone.  So she initially went to a hospital right there in Silver City.

They did not have the expertise to work with this and so she was transferred to Las Cruces. A surgeon put a fixator on her leg to stablize it.  A series of rods and pins from the thigh down to the foot. It locked her leg in position so that it could heal. The surgeon warned us that if the bone did not knit there was chance that her leg could actually be amputated. 

Moreover, lack of bloodflow from swelling had killed a muscle that goes down the front of the leg.  This muscle moves the foot up and down - so no more driving. The surgeon also warned us that at her age, the leg would heal slowly and the remaining muscles may not recover 100%. With her COPD and other health problems, she needed to live closer to medical care - not in the middle of the desert.

She did say that we needed to have a fire sale with the horses. So she saw that we needed to get rid of them. I did try to sell some locally by contacted the local FFA. I got a few tire kickers, but no one actually came out to look at them. I knew that there are few local buyers for these horses, quarterhorses are the preferred breed for the ranches as they are a working horse.  The Peruvian Paso horses are a gaited horse and so there just isn't much demand for them.  

Meaning that buyers would most likelly be several states away.  So transportation and logistics would be a problem. They would all need shots to go out of state.  Most of the horses had not been worked with, so we would have the same problem that Mom had - how to get halters on unbroken horses. It would have been a long summer of wrangling horses if I had followed her plan. Sure she would lose the money from the sales of the horses, but none of them were that valuable.  Plus, she was spending around $2500 per month on hay and so forth. So in year, the saving from not buying hay and feed would more than pay for the horses.  Finally, even if we got experienced horse people out there to work with the horses, there would be a liablity issue if someone else got hurt.

So I made a few phone calls and found a horse rescue place to take them all.  We were planning on taking the oldest Palimino and her colt back to Ohio with us. So far, so good - or so we thought. The horse rescue place put out photo's of the horses and let some people know what would be coming soon. One of the people happened to be a friend of Mom's and immediately sent out a bat alert that someone was trying sell her horses. It became a crap storm after that.

Mom was furious and called me from the hospital.  We actually got into a shouting match over the phone.  People were wanting to come pick up horses but I refused to let them do it as I had already signed a contract with the rescue folks and also because of the above reasons.  I got some hate messages on facebook messenger.  

Someone even got Becky's phone number and sent threatening messages to her.  They spoofed a bogus number from Nebraska and said that if don't stop what you are doing, you will be dead!  Later Mom said someone was coming to get a horse. I told her a truck was pulled in front of the gate and that I had a 9mm pistol if they got past that.  Things had gotten that bad. People were even threatening the horse rescue people.  All this commotion for a bunch of horses! 

It seems that nothing is easy when it comes with dealing with issues related to Mom. So the day came for the horse rescue to load the horses.  The 1st trailer was loaded and pulled to the side.  However someone forgot to latch the gate to the trailer. The horses began to ease out.  A teenaged son tried to be a hero and rush to the gate and shoo them back. They rolled him over, but luckily he escaped injury. 

Well we joked, that 1st trailer was just practice. We finally got them all loaded and off they went. A few days later we suspect that someone was posing as a brand inspector called us and threatened that if we tried to move the Palimino and the colt to Ohio we would be fined.  Well by that time we were done. So we got hold of another horse rescue place to take the last 2 horses as the 1st bunch were finished. 

It was a younger guy and he was not experienced pulling a trailer. Even though the address is on the front of the property, he turned into the place next door and had to turn around. By that time it was dark.  But loading the horses was not a problem.  We watched as he left with a feeling of relief.  Which lasted for about 30 seconds as he missed a turn in the driveway and began heading across the mesquite to the mountains! I franticly ran down the drive waving a flashlight to get him to stop. He went well over 100 yards before he realized his mistake.

His girlfriend was not much help in directing him to back up so I helped as best I could.  It probably took a good 30 minutes to get him out of his predictament.  I walked him out to the gate so that he wouldn't have any more drives into the brush. When I saw his trailer lights on the highway North of Rodeo I finally relaxed.

We stayed another day or two to get things set as far as a security camera and better locks, then we left. Becky had done some cleanup intially, but after the big blowup we halted any work on the house.  Much later Mom came around, still not pleased about everything but maybe more resigned to the fact that she could not return to her previous life. So we at least have a truce.  The plan is to move Mom to Houston close to Heather when she is recovered enough to be moved. But I have never seen people get so riled up about a bunch of horses in my life.

2022 Western Trip

 

Wild West trip 2022

Well the 1^st day of our trip was not too hateful. A little snow towards evening in Missouri, but it did not stick to the road. It was a bit cool in the trailer, even with the heater on it was like 56 degrees F. But the 2^nd day of our trip it took a turn for the worse.

We eventually found ourselves broken down in, of all places, Broken Arrow, OK. How about the irony of that. I had been having an on again and off again problem with the pickup truck. Back in October it went into limp mode and I pulled it over and turned it off and then back on. It took off like there was no problem. It happened like every 2-3 weeks before we left. I contacted the dealership and they said without an error code, they could not diagnose the problem.

Well it happened on the trip and this time it threw an errorcode and the check engine light came on. We googled the nearest dealership and drove to a Quality Inn close by, as of course we break down on a Sunday and a thousand miles from home. The motel was nice though, I told them our quandary and they comped us with a room with a Jacuzzi, so that helped raise our spirits a bit.

Another bright spot in all this turmoil was that Zach got to stay in a motel room all by himself for the 1^st time ever. He was absolutely elated at the prospect. We joked afterward that he was probably jumping on the bed across the hall. We do suspect that he stayed up late watching tv, as he was hard to wake the next day.

The day we went to the dealership. Loose air intake, you are good to go and only a $75 fee. Not bad we thought – quick and cheap. Well it was too easy, we got down the highway like 10 miles and the same exact thing happened. Back the dealership. This time he cleaned the Mass Air Flow sensor. He said that he could drive it, or if we wanted to chance it we could just head out. We opted to gamble and just head out. With the same result after 10 miles or so.

So now he is completely changing out the MAF, so we are waiting for that to be done and tested before we can leave. Well the MAF was not it either. As they go down their checklist the next thing that could be wrong was the transmission – what luck! It is under warranty, but the problem is that due to covid it could be a month or better before a new transmission comes in! We like the Tulsa area – but not that much.

So we slept on it and considered our options. The general manager did say that one thing to think about was buying a new one and trading in the used one. They had no loaners and renting a truck was going to be expensive. The cheapest we found was $29 per day, but .59 cents per mile. We were like a thousand miles from Rodeo, NM. So like $1200 in mileage alone just to get to and from.

So I decided to pull the trigger on a new truck. It was a limited selection as the 2022's were not in and there were just 3 2021 model trucks on the lot. I did check with the other dealership in town and they had 4 Titans.

I decided to splurge just a bit. We have been frugal a good bit of our lives and I decided to live a little bit. There was a tricked out truck on the lot and it had a sun roof, fancy rims and running boards. And importantly it came with a towing package. Sort of a cowboys Cadillac. It was red which isn't my favorite color but we could get in and go. Some of the trucks lacked running boards or a towing package. So we would have lost more time – and money getting everything set the way that we needed.

It was a low pressure sales environment where the salesmen are paid by the hour. But there was still a bit of negotiation. I was able to get more on my trade-in than they initially asked. And they were trying to get me to pay sticker because new truck supplies are low due to covid. But I pointed out the online price – which was about 5K cheaper and mentioned that it was last years model. Anyway we arrived a figure that worked for both of us. A compromise is when everyone leaves the table a little unhappy.

So we resumed our trip after the interruption. We were about an hour from Deming when we blew a tire on the trailer. Our run of luck continued apparently. Thank goodness for the tire sensor we got for the trailer when we purchased it. This was the 2^nd time it alerted us to a problem – we would not have had a clue either time. By this time, I am getting good at changing the tire. It was like 20 to 30 minutes and we were rolling again.

First stop was Rockhound state park, you are allowed up to 6 pounds of rocks per person. Becky is all about rock hunting, so we did that in the morning. They had an old weathered display that had samples of the types of rocks to look for and their names. The problem was that like a third of the rock samples had been pried out and about half of the tags were too weathered to read or were missing. I shrugged my shoulders and figured that if a rock looked pretty to you, then it was a gem.

We were on the Jasper trail and did find some Jasper and a few other interesting rocks. We visited a winery and a nice Mexican restaurant (Irmas) while we were there. The wine was good and the restaurant was a nice little place with good food. The waitress was nice and it was a good way to end the night. Sometimes those small, out of the way places have the best food.

Finally we were headed to Rodeo and the ranch. We caught up with Mom and found out what all she had been up to and we exchanged the same with her. Zach got to show off his driving skills the 1^st day. Mom needed hay and so we jumped into the Tacoma and went to her hay guy to pick up 10 bales. I did back it up to the wagon, but Zach drove it otherwise.

We did mend some fences and get the pens to where they would actually hold horses. We moved the one stallion to a new pen. A few days later one of the mares got into heat and got him into a lather. The pen has a steel tube gate – which he bent the top half into an 'L” folding it over. He was not far from getting out when I spotted what was going on and so I put a 4 X 4 piece of lumber across the top of the opening to keep him in. I bought a heavier gauge tubular gate to replace it in Las Cruces when I visited a friend there.

My sister, Heather, visited for a spell - it was her 1st trip to the ranch. She was not enamored with the desert. Dusty dirt roads and the remoteness did not agree with her. But she did get to play tourist. We went to Tombstone and the Bisbee copper mine. She flew into Tucson and played tourist there before she left. That was all well received, and she enjoyed that part of the trip. She did have a talk with Mom about getting serious on reducing the herd of horses. It is too much for her and I likewise gave a similar talk to Mom before I left. Time will tell if talk becomes action.  She has maintained all along that after this birthday she would shrink the operation down or maybe sell out completely.

Heather did make a courageous drive on her way back to Tucson to catch the plane home. Coronado National Forest is just across the border in Arizona. She was interested in the scenery and stopped at a couple of monuments.

We had driven the loop the last time we came out West. So I warned her that might be like 200 feet of guard rail on the whole route. Dirt roads, sometimes with snow and mud on them and then some places with 1000 foot drop offs. I didn't want to scare her off by painting too dire of a picture, but I also wanted to paint an accurate portrayal of what was ahead.

She was able to complete the trip and did have one place where an off road vehicle with big tires climbed partially up the side of the mountain to give her room to pass. She did say that it was beautiful, and that yes it was scary in places. I joked that that should give a medal to drivers that make the journey – and survive!

We spent a day and a night in Las Cruces to visit a friend, Manfred, that we had met in Eaton. He owned a business that was a coffee shop during the day and had musical acts come in and perform at night. He did a good job of promoting the business and it was a fun place to visit. So when we found out that he was in Las Cruces we had to make the trip to see him again.

He is an immigrant from Germany that has found success here in the states. And he still works hard to make a living. He traveled America for awhile after leaving Eaton and has a book and is putting together a movie about his experiences during his period of travel. The theme of the movie is about how we are so polarized as Americans here as of late and are pulling apart. He is filming from the middle and is showing both sides.

It was a good visit. He had a G rated painting at a local exhibition named 'Erotica'. I am pretty open minded so I didn't see anything there to offend. There was a range of art – paintings of course, 3d printing which was novel. Uses of everyday articles and implements to make artistic works. So it was interesting. I am not a good judge of art, so we didn't buy anything. Manfred took us to lunch at a nice Mexican restaurant and we had a good time talking about his projects and both of our travels. He is doing some work in Morocco soon, so he will be off on another project soon. It was fun to catch up with an old friend.

We had a good time in Willcox, AZ.  Went to the hotsprings (105 out of the ground) and both of us got a massage.  We ate at a very nice restaurant there in Stafford, AZ.   Did some antiquing and visited some wineries - all in a good 3 days to ourselves.  Which I needed after dealing with Moms horses just before we left.

So 3 are going to Utah - the new owners have paid money and so I will be delivering - leaving March 3 and getting there in the afternoon of the 4th.  Maps says 12 hours, but with stops for water and rest it will take longer.  I get half my payment on load and half when I arrive.

I was able to get the target horses into pens.  But loading them took 3 hours.  We needed to have halters on them for the vet.  So that was a challenge as we had to both halter them and load them. We put the 2 (full grown) geldings in first and Mom actually got into the trailer with them and haltered them - and one had never had a halter on him before (Ramblin Man)! He will be mentioned in this story again...

Then we had the filly to load.  Mom said that the key was to get the mare in first and the filly would follow. But the mare was difficult, it seemed to take forever to get her in, but the filly did follow. We did halter the mare, but it was dark by the time we finished and so no time to halter the filly.

So the next day, we get to the vets about 2 hours away in Silver City. 6 people are in front of us, finally it is our turn.  They say we can unload them and tie them to the trailer.  I told them that would not work, that they needed to be corralled as they had not been worked with much.

We unloaded and they told us to go grab a lunch and they should be done by the time we got back.  With any other horses but Moms that would have been true. We get back and they can't do the filly because they can't catch it.  Rambling Man got out of his halter and this poor guy was trying to catch him in the pen. It's a mess.

So they are ready to give up.  Mom says load the 2 geldings back into the trailer and she would halter Rambling man again.  The assistant states that he does not think this is a good idea. But again she gets into the trailer with 2 geldings and although I helped a little through the sides, she manages to get him haltered again!  Vet comes out and does her thing and he is done.

Becky said that while I was holding the horse and the vet was giving shots, Mom looked very fatigued and was leaning with her head against the trailer getting her breath back. I am hopeful that all of this is teaching her that this whole horse thing is too much.

rambling man is going to a woman that wants him for her grandkids to ride - I joked to Becky that she must not like her grandkids, he is very skittish. Pedro is the other gelding, he lead well and was not much of a hassle - he will do well at his new home. He is a smart horse and has a good personality. The personality of the filly is good, but it just needs to be worked with.

So I told Becky that from Tuesday to Friday in Willcox that I did not want to talk or think about horses.  We got back today and Mom has released them from their pens!  They have to be caught all over again!  Needless to say, I was not happy to see that, I couldn't believe it.  She said it was too expensive to buy the small round bales and so that was the reason they were let loose :-(   

On the plus side, Zach is getting to be a regular ranch hand.  I thanked him for his help - and he did well in getting the horses loaded and held the one gelding while we worked around with the other.  He seemed pretty proud when I told him that he  was getting to be a regular cowboy.

Although I did have a teachable moment when I saw that he had the rope wound around his arm while he was holding the one gelding in the trailer. I told him that the gelding is a thousand pound animal and that if it spooked, it could jerk the rope against the steel sides of the trailer and splinter the bones in his arm the way that he had the rope all wound around his arm. I showed him how to wind the rope around a steel cross bar to get leverage and then hold the rope in away that it would not pull his arm or hand against the trailer. Oh, and to always hold a rope with gloves so that you don't get rope burn – I learned about that the hard way when I was a youngster.

Becky went with me on this horse delivery trip. I was worried as I try to keep expenses down by sleeping in the truck instead of a motel and so with her bad back that could be problematic. But on the other hand it is nice to have someone with you to share the experience and also to help chronicle the trip. She did manage to take a lot of photo's of the landmarks we saw coming and going. But surprisingly she slept OK back wise in the truck.

On the way up we had a quick burst of excitement. We were traveling through a reservation on a 2 lane highway. There were 3-4 vehicles behind us and oncoming traffic was about the same. All of a sudden the 2^nd oncoming car whips out into our lane and goes to pass the car in front of him. I swore and started to press the brakes. Becky looked up in time to see a black sedan coming right at us!

Just a split second before I applied full brakes, he swung his vehicle back into his lane. Then we saw the reason he was in such a hurry – a cop in hot pursuit. The cop was likewise dodging cars as he whistled by with lights and siren. But what a mess that could have been with the 4 horses in the trailer. Becky burst into tears from the experience – it was so close to being a catastrophe.

We finally made it up to Utah to drop off the horses at the trainers. I think they are in good hands. The trainer is one of those people that just seems to have a way with horses. The slow, gentle way that moved around the horses and the gentle tone of his voice reminded me of the way that my Mother works with the horses. I asked him if he needed a hand getting the halter on the 1^st horse, he already had it haltered and was gently leading it off the trailer. The rest were offloaded with no incident. With the unloading and the paperwork done, we headed back to New Mexico.

But not so fast, we had another incident and again on an Indian reservation, this time the Navajo one. I saw a piece of something black fly out of the corner of my eye. Then I looked in the rear view mirror in time to see a trailer tire shred up - pieces of rubber were flying everywhere. So I had a flat to fix.

Just ahead I saw a sign for a Baptist church. I figured they would have a big parking lot and so it would a good place to replace the tire. But when I pulled the tire off, the hub was unnaturally low to the ground. When I looked closer, I saw that the leaf spring had broke. No 30 minute fix here, it was going to take some work.

Fortunately, some volunteers were cleaning at the church and saw our plight. They gave us a couple of burritos and told us about a Navajo Trailer Sales and Service place about an hour away in Gallup, NM. They had the spring, but they closed in an hour and 15 minutes. So we had to scoot to make it before they closed.

We got there in time and got the spring for a decent price. Then we had to buy a bale of hay as we had fed the last of the hay that morning, figuring we would be home by nightfall. We saw a flea market and at one end of it there were several sellers of hay with either flat bed trailers or trucks filled with various types of hay. We just needed a single bale, but they had big bales – they were the size of 3 or 4 of regular sized bales that I remember chucking around in my youth. We bought one and it was like $18. More hay and more pricier than I needed, but any port in a storm.

When I got back, I found out that the hardest work laid ahead. The 4 bolts that held the spring to the axle were not much of a problem. But the bolts that held the shackles to the frame were rusty and fine threaded. Using a breaker bar, I had to bear down and could only manage about a ¼ turn at a time. It was tedious and hard work. I was close to just calling it quits for the day and seeing if I could get a cut off saw from a hardware store to cut off the bolts. But the nearest hardware store was an hour away and it was creeping towards dusk.

Anthony was a Navajo who used to work bus maintenance for the local school district. He is 74 years old and he stopped by to see how things were going. He went home to get some tools after assessing the situation and came back with the tools and his grandson.

Then a truck and a van pulled up. The truck had a huge flatbed trailer which I later found out had been loaded down with building materials. One of the guys walked over to ask what was up. I explained my plight and in minutes we were surrounded by these guys from Somerset, KY. They had come to the reservation to put up a building for the church – and they had tools. One of these tools was a cordless impact wrench. So between the tools that Anthony had brought and what the work crew had there was enough to get the job started.

In minutes they had the old bolts off. Then they had the new spring on, things were happening fast – it was like watching a nascar pit crew. Becky came out of the truck and was in tears. “I prayed that my husband would not get hurt fixing this trailer and my prayers were answered – thank you so much.”

Some would say it was serendipity and others would say that things happen for a reason. It was a 714 mile trip and the blowout happened about 200 yards from the church. A church where a work crew was arriving that afternoon. All that I can say is that I was inspired and it renewed my faith. Right now Ukraine is being attacked, but an event like this reaffirms my belief in humanity and somewhere, somehow that there is god that works in ways we don't always understand.

It was too late to get back on the road and we were a short drive away from a town with 2 hotels, so we drove there to stay the night. We had to stay at the Navajo Hotel of course. The next morning we get up – to 4 inches of fresh snow! The forecast had been for a dusting, but we got that and a lot more.

It was slow going at first but after about an hour we got out of the worst of it and before long we made it to where it had not snowed at all. We were able to make decent time. We did make a detour on the trip. There is a place called the Valley of the Gods in Utah that was not too far out of our way and we were able to go around the edge and see a good bit of it.

We were not able to drive through it as we came across a sign that warned that vehicles with trailers past like 20 feet were not allowed. Not wanting to take any more chances we turned around at a ranch and just looked over the edge into the valley. Pretty impressive even from a distance.

Zach was able to get in a boatload of driving. He drove to the post office most every day and we let him drive on longer and longer trips. Driving Miss Susan, we joked. His longest trip was a 3 hour (one way) drive to Las Cruces to get the Toyota to the dealership for maintenance and he even had to drive back at night. He accidentally exited the highway at the wrong exit when he was hugging the right side and drove a little slowly once it was fully dark on the 2 lane highway, but he got everyone home safely on all of his trips.

We did make a side trip to Tuscon. It is not all that far from Mom's place and it wasn't too bad of a drive. We stayed in an Airbnb and checked out the area over a long weekend. We had to visit a rock shop for Becky. There are tons of rock shops in the area and I can see why. During my walks in the neighborhood I saw fools gold, many varieties of quartz, and so forth. The backyard of the Airbnb had some interesting specimens that you could find just walking around.

We ate at several of the restaurants as we had heard good things about the food in Tuscon and we were not disappointed. We got to see the desert museum and all of the cacti. It was worth the visit.

Another side trip we did was to Shakespeare ghost town.  At one time it had 3000 residents when silver was found there.  It had a few more booms and busts and now the population is 3.  But the current owners have done a good job of preserving the past.  Many rustic buildings and stories are to be found there.  We enjoyed the place, it was well worth the price of admission.  

One thing that I wanted to accomplish before I left was to climb one of the mountain peaks behind the ranch. The last time that I visited, I tried to climb the higher peak but I picked a bad route and ended up boxed in to where I could not go any higher without climbing back down and going an entirely different direction.

This time I went with the most direct route. It was steeper but I had a definite way to the top. It took some doing but I was finally able to make it all the way up. I rested for a spell and explored the top a little. Then it was time to head down. It was steep, so the going difficult – I had a walking stick which helped a little. But it felt good to accomplish the feat, I don't know how many more years I will have the endurance and stamina to do challenges like this.

We had one last stop in New Mexico – White Sands National Park. Found out that the white sand was actually gypsum that had leached out of the mountains. But I found that a lot of folks treated the place like a beach. As far as bringing beach chairs and laying in the sun. Youngsters (well and some adults) enjoyed riding sleds down the dunes. Found that some of the wildlife had adopted to the sand by becoming white – lizards and insects had to adapt to life on the dunes.   

It was time to head home. We stopped to visit Becky's niece in Missouri. Kris and Amanda have 4 kids and we sure can identify with them. Holding down jobs, wrangling kids, and keeping the bills paid. They have their hands full, but seem to be managing things well. They remind me of us when we were about the same age.

We had a dinner and a chat at their house. Well you have to chat – no TV in the living room. Which as you think about it, makes sense. No distractions, you have to focus and interact with each other. So a good idea all in all. A room for living, not watching.

All in all it was a very eventful trip. Lots of ups and downs but it was very satisfying, we never get tired of seeing the West.