Just a car trip

Wow, it's been a long time. I have been crazy busy getting ready for winter and the Taos Wool Market.

As I have mentioned before Elaine and I have been vendors at the Taos Wool Market for years. For those of you who are not familiar with the Taos Wool Market, I can give you a brief explanation.

Taos, New Mexico a historic town located in the "mountains" of New Mexico. Originally settled by the Taos Indians and fur traders it has evolved into an amazing center for the arts. More than 25 years ago, a bunch of sheep ranchers started meeting in Taos, New Mexico; selling wool related products in the Taos city park (Kit Carson Park, named for the famous explorer of the West). The annual gathering has grown to becoming something quite large in the yarn community. The festival is attended by people literally from around the world.

OK, get your favorite beverage. Let's get started.

The first issue to be dealt with in preparation for a trip to Taos (or anywhere) is who is going to watch the animals? In the past we have been successful in coaxing my niece (thanks Kris) into house sitting. With a beautiful kid of her own, that ship has sailed. Our next house sitter was my nephew. Good kid, smart. He didn't even call us back until it was too late to make arrangements to have him house sit this year. I told you he was smart.

I decided to stay home and let the family go without me. When I told a friend I was staying home, he volunteered to watch the animals. Considering he has a wife, children and grandchildren plus animals of his own, all living in his house, I was really surprised he would offer to watch my herds. More later.

We pull a trailer full of yarn and yarn stuff to Taos. Having demolished the truck that would have pulled the trailer, we needed to prepare a replacement vehicle. I have learned a lot about this step. Preparing an Asian vehicle to pull an American trailer turns out to be quite a challenge. Adding a trailer brake controller and synchronizing lights requires specialized parts to be obtained at the vehicle manufacturer's dealership. I wish they would actually have the parts. "Oh, you need one of those special things; we can have it here in three days". I started the project early enough to allow the mechanics plenty of time to connect the car to the trailer. That worked great, considering we have a three day to wait for parts.

The parts arrived right on schedule. It would have been really great if the dealership would have explained that if you get one part, you need another part to complete the project. "Oh, you need different thing to go with the first thing; we can have it here in three days.

Now we are pushing the schedule. Elaine and I were planning on leaving for Taos on Wednesday, now with the car and trailer not working out, the best we could do was leave for Taos Thursday at noon. Thursday noon was about the time the mechanics called to inform us the last part did not get ordered. We NEED to be in Taos Friday morning. The mechanics told us not to worry; they would bypass the missing parts. Bypass the parts? It is now Thursday at 5:30 PM. I am looking for a rental truck. The mechanic calls to inform us everything is ready. We can pick up the car. Everything is great, or it would have been if the turn signals on the trailer worked. Replace the bulbs and away we go. We are finally on the road.

I didn't mention that the mechanics shop loaned us a car to drive when they were working on ours. That was really nice of them, but it came within a whisker of being a disaster. We were packing the loaner at home with last minute items to transfer to our car later, when Girl Twin walks into the house and announces "I don't know how we are going to Taos, the keys are locked in the car!" When my heart started beating again, I got up the courage to try all four doors. Yep, the doors were locked and no matter how much I wished the keys were not in the car, they were right where I left them, on the driver's seat.

Ivy, Elaine and I spent the next hour trying to unlock the doors with wire, flat pieces of metal, and a pry bar. I really didn't know what we were doing, but I watch a lot of documentary TV. We got to the point where our choice was breakout a window or try to get a key sent up from town. I had Elaine call the mechanic's shop to see if they had another key in town. They didn't have a key in town. They did have a key hidden under the rear bumper of the loaner car. Brilliant! I wish we would have called almost two hours before!

We arrived in Taos after midnight Friday morning.

I have more to talk about, but this is getting kind of long. I'll finish the story later.

Our crazy lives!

Monner