The final report:
Moriarty NM was 40 degrees when we checked in Monday night; Tuesday morning it was 14 degrees. Luckily, Long Gulch's Ram truck has heated everything (seats, steering wheel, etc.). About 4 hours into our drive we need to take a rest stop. There wasn't much available. Finally we spotted a gas station next to a Dairy Queen. The temperature had risen to a balmy 19 degrees. Gulch passed on any DQ goodies, but I ordered a large vanilla cone. There was a group of warmly dressed construction workers eating lunch that got a good chuckle out of that. Shortly after leaving DQ, we spotted a huge house fire just off the interstate. We also saw the burnt wreckage of what must have been a large 5th wheel. The road was burnt and the trailer was nothing but charcoal.
The day had turned from sunny to cloudy and eventually we were driving in a pounding rain storm. Some chuckle head in a Dodge Charger shot passed us in the left lane at a high rate of speed. A few miles down the road we spotted him stuck behind a slowpoke in the left lane. He spotted an opening about 40 yards ahead of us and gunned it into the right lane. The car didn't hold the right lane and he flew through the grass shoulder and crashed into the woods. There was very little solid shoulder to pull over on, but finally we managed to pull off the road and call 911. There was no safe way to back up to the site of the wreck. It was raining to hard to walk back and it wasn't safe to leave Gulch's truck just barely off the interstate. We made it to Fort Smith after dark. We had logged about 712 miles that day. We opened the back of the truck only find that Long Gulch's truck was no longer water tight and much of our gear was soaked.
We were tired wet and cold. There was a Buffalo Wild Wings across the parking lot and it afforded me liquid refreshment. The food was good and the place was nearly deserted. We started off again about 8:00 the next morning. Gulch took us to a tiny little town in Arkansas about an hour away to pick up a sizable order of black powder. We joked that it would not be a good idea to be stopped by the cops with our abundance of guns and large boxes full of black powder. Of course it rained pretty hard again the rest of the day.
We were making good time and were starting to climb Monteagle Mountain. We were gaining on a Chrysler 300 that was driving erratically. They guy was sloped low in the driver's seat and was messing with something on his lap or the passenger seat. Just after we passed him, Long Gulch shouted a phrase that made me blush. In his rear view he saw the Chrysler slide sideways across all lane of traffic and launch into the rock wall on the right. There was a moderate amount of traffic at the time, but we didn't see another car anywhere behind us for at least 10 minutes. We came to almost a complete stop when we hit the stretch of I-24 east that's in Georgia near the exit to I-59. After a few miles the traffic picked up again and we saw a 50-60 yard stretch of guardrail was gone on the left the side of the road. The road and grass on the shoulder was scorched and there was a lot of wreckage scattered on the shoulder.
At about 8:00 p.m., Long Gulch pulled into my driveway and helped me unload my gear that was wet again for a second night. I was too tired to write anything last night. Kitty Kat found me sound asleep in the recliner at 2:00 a.m. with Fox News on the TV.
I will return to Tombstone. Maybe not next year, but soon with my better half in tow.
