This spring has been a strange one for me. Early this year, a friend and I sat down and planned out a number of major ride plans and several lesser ones as well. We scheduled things out on the calendar, so we could designate specific days for these rides and block them out, so that nothing else would inadvertently get scheduled over them, as has so often happened in the past. We scheduled a three-day trip to the Moab, Utah area, one to the Grand Canyon, one to the Wind Rivers, one to Yellowstone, and monthly day rides for our local Back Country Horsemen chapter. We were pretty excited.

Then real-life happened. Our very first trip, to the San Rafael Swell area, was downgraded from an overnighter to a day trip. We left early one morning with another rider, all loaded into my truck/trailer rig. We hadn’t even gotten out of Spanish Fork, before my truck suddenly overheated!  We limped it back into town and ended up transferring our horses and tack over to our buddy’s truck/trailer and headed out…later than we had hoped.

We had a nice day ride in Buckhorn Wash, but we didn’t get as far up the canyon as we had hoped. Still, a nice trip.

Turns out my truck’s thermostat was stuck. A $15 part that took all of 5 minutes to replace.

Then our Moab trip was cancelled, due to weather concerns and other things that got in the way. However, I was able to occupy my time helping a friend purchase and tune-up a couple  Missouri Fox Trotters he bought for his family. He, being a first-time horse owner, asked for my advice in helping him select the “right” horses for his family. He had found a pair in the local classified ads that he thought might be likely prospects, so I went with him to take a look.

After giving them a good “once-over”, I saddled each one and took a couple turns around the pasture. Since neither horse was registered, I had two purposes in mind: First, to make sure they would actually gait, and secondly, to see what their temperament was like and what level of training they might have. Both geldings gaited very well, showing a nice Fox Trot as well as a nice canter. Both, however, needed some mileage put on them, as neither had been handled at all for more than a year, before they would be ready for my friend and his kids. Both horses had very gentle and friendly temperaments, though, and the price was good, so I recommended he have both horses checked by a veterinarian and, barring any issues from the vet, buy both horses (they were siblings and had been pretty much raised together).

It seems I only got a photo of the older gelding, but they look pretty similar.

Based on my recommendation, Dave bought the horses and hired me to put some mileage and trail training on the youngest gelding, who was about 6 years old and still showed some “green” tendencies. During his training, I also spent time working with my friend and his sons, teaching them a little about horsemanship and working with good horses, so as to ensure both the riders and horses would enjoy each other and neither would develop any serious bad habits. After putting about 50 miles on the younger horse, I put another 50 on the older gelding, who was about 13 years old and a little steadier in his mentality, but a bit skittish from lack of handling over a long period of time. Due to spring weather along the Wasatch Front, it took me over three months to complete the training. I look forward to riding with Dave and his sons later on this summer.

During that same time frame, I helped another friend get his three wonderful mares bred to a couple Rocky Mountain stallions located north of Salt Lake City. I’m still working on that project. Two of the three mares didn’t settle from the first breeding, so we tried again and are waiting for pregnancy confirmations.

Due to all the above, my horses didn’t get all the attention I had hoped to give them, in preparation for my fifth or sixth attempt to cross the Grand Canyon. My followers will recall that last fall I was actually on the road, headed to the Grand Canyon to make my crossing, when my truck’s engine failed, thus ending my trip just as it was getting underway. So, after so many failed attempts to make this trip happen, I wasn’t too surprised when I had to cancel it again. Sadly, my partner, who was to shuttle my truck and trailer around the Grand Canyon as I rode through it, had a death in the family this past week. That sort of brings things back into focus and reminds me how much more important are our family relationships than horse trips.

I have begun to think that maybe the Good Lord just doesn’t think crossing the Grand Canyon is a good idea for me. Still, I got a very good reminder this past week, that He is mindful of me and watching out for my welfare.

Last Tuesday, I hauled the two geldings I had been training up to Heber City, Utah, and delivered them to my friend’s place. The trip includes 22 miles up and back through Provo Canyon, a winding route with a maximum speed limit of 55 miles per hour. Upon my return I was a bit rushed and hurried down the canyon to meet my daughter, who needed help moving from Provo, Utah to Morgan, Utah. I picked up my 18′ contractor’s trailer and loaded it up with all her and her husband’s belongings, and headed northward. The drive was about an hour and a half up I-15, US-89, and US-84, to Morgan, where we unloaded and I headed home in the fading light.

I had just gotten back onto US-84, headed back toward Ogden, when I noticed something bouncing down the highway alongside my truck. I couldn’t tell what it was, but I figured I must have run over a rock or something and sent it bouncing down the road. I gave it no further thought.

The following day was rainy, so I spent the day working on my computers at home. Thursday, however, showed some sunshine, so I grabbed my son-in-law and picked up a load of 8,000 pounds of hay. We hauled it to my hay storage barn and unloaded about half of it, before I had to call it quits for the day. I’m just not the man I used to be.

On Friday morning, I hitched up my 4-horse gooseneck trailer and loaded up my three horses for a trip to the vet for Coggins tests and spring shots. I hadn’t gone a mile before my truck again overheated!

The veterinarian’s office wasn’t far, so I limped it in to Benjamin, Utah to make my appointment. I was able to limp back to my pasture afterward without doing any damage to the truck’s new engine (remember the engine failure last fall? I spent $18,000 on a new engine). I got the horses unloaded and trailer unhitched and limped carefully home, where I could further diagnose the problem.

Once home, it looked like it might rain again, so I limped on over to my hay storage barn, where about fifty 80lb bales were waiting for me to finish unloading and stacking them. I got that done and went back to trying to figure out why my truck was overheating.

Now, I have been my own mechanic for more than 50 years and in all that time I have had only one thermostat failure…and that was just last month on my truck! So, having just recently replaced my thermostat, I started looking at the temperature sending unit as a possible target for replacement. So, I drove my truck back to Spanish Fork to the local NAPA auto parts store. After some conversation with the store manager, he came out with me to take a look and see if we could determine whether the new thermostat had failed or if it might be a problem with the sending unit. As he walked past the front of my truck, he pointed at my front left wheel and said, “I think I would be more concerned about that than a thermostat!”

I walked forward to see what he was talking about and saw this:

 

Five of the eight lug studs had broken off! My life sort of “passed before my eyes” and I suddenly remembered that “rock” that was bouncing down the road beside my truck on Tuesday evening near Morgan, Utah! Well, I very thankfully bought a new thermostat, as well as 8 new lug studs and 5 new lug nuts and again limped my way very carefully back home!

I was able to replace all the wheel studs without trouble and was back on the road this week. I replaced the thermostat, as well, have have had no further trouble with overheating.

My takeway from this incident is simply this: I think the Good Lord is not done with me yet; He has a few more things He wants to do with me before He takes me home.

With my 50 some years of mechanical experience, I have now had only two thermostat failures. The second may have saved my life, as my next trip was about 75 miles to Ogden, Utah to help a friend, which would have taken place early Saturday morning. Had that thermostat not failed, I would never have seen those broken wheel studs. I cannot explain how that wheel did not come off, as I was traveling home from Morgan at speeds in excess of 80 mph at times, pulling a trailer.

Last Friday, I drove back up to Heber City to finish up helping my friend get settled with his new horses. On the way back down Provo Canyon, I saw one of my lost lug nuts (they are extra large and not hard to see) in the median about half way down the canyon. Yesterday (Saturday), I drove up to Orem, Utah to take my grandson to his baseball game. I saw another of my lug nuts in the median on I-15 on the way (a car had run over it and it was bouncing down the highway, just like the one I saw near Morgan). It is pretty evident to me that I started losing them in Provo Canyon and lost the other 4 en route to and from Morgan. I must have driven more than 150 miles with my wheel about to fall off!

I have no explanation for how the lug nuts became loosened nor how that wheel stayed on once the studs began to break.

Like I said, I guess the Lord is not done with me yet.