This is a tale of our 20 year anniversary trip. I asked her what she wanted, and she pretty much said flatly "a trip out west, with NO kids, hike the narrows, go to the Tetons for a few days." What? SIMPLE!
That beats the heck out of jewelry or the like any day.
We set out for 2.5 weeks away with the kids at her parent's. Wow, how nice to pack the SMB for two. All that space! Sort of.
Day one included a stop over in Memphis for a funeral, which stretched to day 5. Ugh. Not a good start. We left there late afternoon on a Monday and were cruising happily along through Oklahoma about midnight when I noticed my lights looked a little dim. Uh-oh. Battery meter read 11.8 because I didn't notice it for awhile. I think we were too busy catching up on conversations we haven't had in, say, 10 years? I knew we had to pull over and sleep, and most likely find an alternator the next morning. We found a rest area and since it's just the two of us no need to pop the top. We made the bed and rested well.
Just a quick bit of bragging here about my Appalachian American ingenuity. I always carry a generator in a box on the back, and I keep a small battery charger in the van as well for emergencies or if the inverter/charger ever fails. I fired up the generator, ran an extension cord over the awning brackets to the hood, plugged in my tiny charger and kept the battery alive enough to run the lights and van for 50 miles or so while we found a rest stop to sleep.
Well, I thought it was pretty brilliant, but she wasn't all that impressed.
The next morning, with a cool engine, I pulled the alternator with plans to just drive the few miles to a town with an auto parts store without it or the belt. On my 460, this seemed possible. When I pulled the alternator, I found that about 6 inches down the positive cable SMB had spliced the wire to the battery isolator, and whatever connection they made there had disintegrated over time. Obviously not a good seal on the heat shrink, if they even used any, and it corroded and gave way. My stop at the auto parts store mostly included a bench test of the alternator, which was fine, and a cable and connectors to repair the line. Off we went losing only about 2 hours and 21 dollars.
We carried on across I-40 and eventually up I-25 through the corner of New Mexico. By late in the day we were just south of Pueblo CO and cut north west on 69 at Walsenberg. I strongly recommend this detour if you're headed this direction from points south towards Gunnison or Salida. It takes you right along the Sangre De Cristo range and right by Great Sand Dunes NP, which we didn't check out but will someday.
Sangre De Cristo range from Deweese Reservoir
Sunset with a storm rolling in
We had a great beer and burger at Chappy's Bar & Grill in Westcliffe. Then on to the nearby Deweese Reservoir for the night. We rolled in long after dark but were greeted with this in the morning.
More to come
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