“There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.”
Alfred Wainwright
It’s been a difficult adjustment from Airbnb‘s to the mountains in a canvas tent perched above my jeep. At night the temperatures are between 32° and 40° so I have to bundle up. Mornings are the hard part. The mountains are amazing and the campsites I’ve found so far are unreal.
I’m slowly getting used to not talking. There were times while I was with Milton then I’m sure he wished I would shut up and now that’s not a problem. I drive around and quiet solitude without the radio on just letting things pop in and out of my consciousness. I’m really trying not to be obsessed about every little light, beep and bump while I’m driving. As Milton knows from traveling with me for 10 days, this is nearly impossible.
Today I woke up at about 8:30 again waiting for it to get warm enough to climb outside the jeep. I’ll get used to these temps. Someone once said; It is not bad weather, it is bad gear. When I climbed down from the Jeep, I made some coffee in my Aeropress and sat and looked at my beautiful view of the San Juan valley. I then went for a hike on the Ramona trail. Those who are following me, saw me backtrack several times and then ultimately going way off trail because I don’t like trails. Along the way I saw tons of large cat tracks. One of them was as big as the toe of my boot. That was the first time in a long time that I’ve thought about being stocked by a mountain lion. Earlier in my life, I was stocked by a pretty large cat and managed to evade him.
About an hour and a half to two hours later, I ended up back at camp and decided to start planning my next day. I called Bo at Jeepmasters in Austin to find out what recently had been done to my Jeep. I never remember to take pictures of receipts. Bo told me that he didn’t think the maintenance I was looking for had been done, so I decided to look for a shop near me in California. A friend (thanks Dan and Adam) of mine from trip out west a few years back hooked me up with a Facebook group called San Diego Jeep group. On there several people gave me options of places to take my jeep, several suggesting the same one. I called Shift Autoworx and told Michael about my scenario. He set me up with an appointment tomorrow morning at 8 AM. So I loaded up Jimmy King aired up the tires and headed to Escondido California. I’m staying in a hotel tonight so I can make it there on time in the morning. I’ll see how it goes tomorrow! As most of y’all know, repair costs are at $1480 so far.
Thanks for following. I hope you enjoyed my ramblings.
G
