Our last night in Howard

We will be leaving Howard in the morning (Sept 1) and heading to Lake City, Colorado. Ron and Loretta will be leading us, with Loretta driving the Saturn between us. It is only a 4 hour ride, with one pass to cross. I will be pulling the trailer.

The muffler saga continues! It came in on Friday. It was there when we returned from breakfast with Ron, Loretta,Loretta, Sandy and Dick at Patio Pancakes, of course! So I tore open the package and…. it was all there! I had purchased the parts needed to install from the dealer in BV, when the parts he ordered came in minus the muffler, so I was ready to go. I had already taken the roll cage apart and removed the old muffler. So we tipped the box and that is where the fun began.

We tried putting the muffler in from the back, but it kept getting hung up on a frame member. So we tried from the top, from the side, from the other side, from the back, we dropped the header and we tried from the side, from the other side, and one last time from the back. We knew it had to go, so this time I pushed it in till it stopped, then twisted it to the right, then forward, then twisted back to left and it was in!!!! Only took us three hours to complete!!!

So off we went for a ride. Dick and Sandy rode with us. We headed west from Banderas to the gold fields to get some samplings from pits others had dug. We drove to several and in one spot we stopped it was in a thorny patch, so Loretta asked me to back up. Whoa, whats this? I move the gear shift and it still says I am in high. I give it gas and it moves forward. I try to shift to low same thing. It feels like the linkage was broken. We still could go forward, so we headed for home.

We arrived back okay. I took off the console and sure enough the bolt had come out of the linkage arm. Good news the bolt and washer was on the plate below! Put it back in and put the console on and it was as good as new.

We took another trail ride on Saturday to Texas Creek. It was about 18 miles from Banderas. Great trails and a beautiful area to ride. We took our last ride, Monday. We again went west to Wellsville and took some new trails to some quarries, then back to the highline trail to another new trail, following it until it dead ended then back to the highline trail back to Banderas. 33.5 miles in total. The Beast is so quiet now. Ron and Loretta appreciate that and so do we!

So keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we travel.

Happy Trails.

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