Rocky’s Web

Scariest Place

I will have to say that Friday, July 11, was the scariest day of this whole trip. I was following Paul down the gravel road, when he went off. I heard the conversation he had with the highway crew, and I think he missed the spot that they told him about with corrals, and water. There was a turnoff off the paved road. They had told us earlier that the gravel road was only one lane, and it would be almost impossible to pass if you met a car coming the opposite way. I asked that question, because still remember driving those s curved roads in the Gila Mountains, and wanted to know if I had more of that to look forwarded too. The roads in the Gila Mountains were  2 lanes and paved, but had a lot of tight turns.  I am glad we are driving in daylight. The drivers coming in the opposite direction were also slowing down approaching the curves. It may have been possible that they saw the look of concentration on my face or thought woman driver coming at me.

Shortly after the road turned to gravel  saw a sign that said the road narrows, and the gravel was not really holding the tires well, because there was limited traction. There is no communication between the trucks, we had tried radios before and they just don’t work. Think there was a total of 3 sets, even if we were well within the mile radius indicated on them. We had planned on using them to keep in touch with the riders, so we could be in the correct spot, when cell service wasn’t working.  That is one thing I would recommend to anyone, come up with a backup plan of how to stay in touch with other drivers and riders, don’t depend on cell phones, or radios that don’t cover the distance they are suppose to. We even had spotty reception on the trip down to New Mexico from OK.

Back to my story, on one of the upper curves, I had seen the trailer go over too far towards the bank, and kept saying to myself, you better slow down. I had made that comment more than once to him in the past, but kept getting a deaf ear turned.  I just kept driving slow because of the conditions and having to tow a camper on those roads, would rather be safe than sorry. Well, we get down the bottom of the hill and a curve was there, and he cut it too sharp, because there was plenty of room to make a wide turn. Paul had pulled almost across, but was hung up on a small pine tree, and instead of stopping and seeing what kind of bind he was in, he jams it in reverse and tries to back up and pull ahead, making it go off farther and by then the horses are scrambling. I don’t think I even waited for him to stop. All I could think of   get the horses out, in case he lost it totally. I was already out of my truck on the road. I opened the backdoor and had Cochise out and Paul was standing there dumbfounded, I said hold this horse and went in and got Daisy. She had lost a little hair on her hip, but was fine.  I don’t think I started shaking until my four legged friends and I were safely on solid ground.  That is when I saw that if the horses hadn’t kept their wits about them and stayed calm and trusted me, we all would have been in a mess.  It could have been a real nightmare, so said a prayer of thanks that the horses and I were fine. I told the young couple that went back for to call for help, to be sure to tell the men on horseback that the other horses are fine. I took them up the road to graze and calm down myself.  You read so many articles on trailer accidents and never expect it to happen to you. I will say this was a first for me in my 50 plus years with horses. Glad that this story has a happy ending.

 I will say that Toby, the tow truck driver, does know his job and had brought the big wrecker. He had been in this business over 18 years, and said he use to tow tractor trailers, so was very familiar with towing a larger than average car. While he was waiting for Paul to turn around, he told Larry and I about the area. There are mustangs running in those hills, they are related to the horses the Spanish brought over. One of the highway workers had mentioned that earlier in the day. Blood work has been done on some of the captured ones to prove this fact. They are about the size of a Welch pony, but even though I had a chance to spend the night there, didn’t see them.  Larry also asked him about the wildlife in the area. Rocky in the meantime was riding with Lance, from the sheriff’s office trying to see why it was taking Paul so long to turn around. The meter was running on the tow truck, and Paul had to follow Toby into town, since there was no cell service to run the credit card. Rocky and Lance were chatting about the computer that was in the sheriff’s car, it was just issued that morning, and other assorted topics. A deputy sheriff had also come up as part of a routine check in the area.

 Mother Nature let us see her playing her tricks, by waiting until it was time for Toby to hitch the chain and then she let it pour, along with some thunder and lightning. It came down hard and soaked right through the raincoats, the wind came up and temperature started dropping. Think it dropped about 20 degrees in the matter of an hour. Once we got Paul on his way, went on to the camping spot. The first thing that I did was put on warm and dry clothes. Rocky made his famous hamburger stew for supper, while I held Blackie, so he could graze in the meadow, and Soldier was fine loose.  Three  cows , a calf and a bull made their appearance in the meadow. The horses had been looking off in that direction earlier, I didn’t notice them until Larry made a remark about me being afraid of a bull, and with his teasing wasn’t sure what he was talking about, because my back was toward the trees. It was a red angus bull, but he was content being Mr. Mellow, the rowdy one in the group was a black baldie heifer who had plenty of fight in her and would go after the dogs whenever they got near her. It was funny watching the dogs run back and forth and playing with the cow. They needed to run too, after being stuck in the camper and truck with no place to play, because we are usually along a highway. Jazz did get to try her backpack and go with Larry and Rocky about 10 miles, because they were on the road with very little traffic. Think everyone was in bed at 8:15, Larry’s horses were staked and hobbled. Blackie and Soldier were high lined. Rocky and Larry headed out of the meadow about 8:30, for their trip into Cuba. I headed back to Grants to find Paul. I got off the mountain and back into town. We stopped at the feed store for a couple of items, fueled the trucks, got some breakfast, made a couple of phone calls and headed to Cuba. We had to drive through some Indian land to arrive in Cuba, and be warned. Watch for animals! There are horses and sheep roaming along side of the road, even though there are fences. The horses that I saw were all pretty nice looking, and all kinds of colors, mostly stock type horses, a couple of foals. Checking the local papers down here, I am surprised that prices are still up there, even for grade horses. I have heard from friends that the market has pretty much gone south up in New York, and there are more horses being turned loose and given to shelters, because of the high cost of feed. Prices down here are about $17-20 for a 4-6 wire bale, the price of a sweet feed, depending on the brand will run close to  $10 up to $18. Prices I have seen on tack and vet supplies, seem to run higher than what I find in tack stores back home, and much higher than the catalogs. There are the people in some feed stores that know their business, and others that just have young people working there, that aren’t familiar with the merchandise, prices or I have my doubts if they have ever been around livestock. I wish to thank the Martin family, Ebony, Caleb, Tim, Sylvia, Rebekah, and Samuel, along with Jenny Vanwert, for helping us out when the trailer went off, and for being so patient about having to wait to get around us. Hope you had a nice camping trip.Guess I will stop here, and now I have a few days of wait time, may be able to catch up on some of the postings. Just keep your fingers crossed we have power. The camper seems to lose the charge in the battery and have to plug into the generator. Caught up on bookwork earlier this morning, and now it is a little past noon, better round up something for lunch. Thank you everyone that has written a comment or sent an email. We read them all. Enjoy hearing from our old friends and making new ones.

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