We are back at our favorite place, Burro Mountain Homestead. I almost hating writing the name and telling you all about this place. Well for selfish reasons, you see I share how awesome it is here and more and more people start coming. As we all know in many instances the more people find out about it the less special it becomes. We have come to love the people here at the homestead. The hospitality we have been shown here at the homestead is far and above anything we have ever experienced. Real, genuine, down to earth are just a few of the words that are at the forefront of my mind when I think of these people.
We had only been home from Texas for 72 hours when we were supposed to be leaving for New Mexico. I really felt like getting ready for this trip would easier since we had just gotten back and really hadn’t unloaded the motorhome except for dirty laundry and a few necessities, but most things we left inside the motorhome. All that being said, it is past the time we wanted to leave on Friday evening and I feel like we are nowhere near ready.
Even Miss C was dropped off earlier than we had planned giving her extra time to pack and help with some of the minor things left to do to get on the road. Of course she is a teenage so just getting her to get herself ready is another chore on my list of things to do. Every time I ask if she is ready it is the same answer, “almost”. We decide about 8:30 and we are just getting ready to load the RZR that we are not leaving until morning, big sigh. We work a little longer and get everything loaded including the RZR, and back the motorhome with trailer attached up against the garage so no one could unload it and take off with it during the night. We call it a night and head to bed about 11:30 with the plan being to be on the road at 5 am.
4 am came very early after so little sleep but we are up and at it. I wake up Miss C and get her back to sleep in the motorhome, all snuggled up and cozy. I spend a little more time trying to get our satellite tv to work. Our receiver went out on the Texas trip and Directv sent us a new one. We have it installed but are still not getting any reception. I spent some time last night while we were loading up trying to get it to work but had no luck. Not that I need tv but sometimes it is nice to flip it on and settle in at night to relax before bed. So I have used the automated line to activate the receiver and two more times to resend authorization and still nothing. I have tried every configuration in the setup and still nothing, so I am back on the phone with a customer service agent and she is working to help me. We have gotten farther than I had last night but we are still working on it, when Tracey comes out ready to go. I have one more thing to get out of the house and lock up, so I hand the phone over to Tracey to finish up with Directv. A few more minutes and we are ever farther in the set up process and can see promise that it will work again. We have now gotten a text from Scott and Kerri that they are pulling up. The satellite set up has made enough progress that Tracey feels comfortable getting off the phone and letting it finish on its own. We are locked and loaded and rolling out of the driveway while the set up finishes. Not only did the set up finish we discovered that our in motion satellite really does work! Since 99% of the time it is just Tracey and I we are not watching tv while going down the road LOL. I bet you are all glad about that.
We are on the road followed by Scott, Kerri and two of their boys in their rig and we are meeting our friends Tim and Carrie at an exit not too far down the freeway. Scott needs to fuel up and it made for a good meeting place at the Petro station. Once Scott is fueled, we are on the road again now a caravan of three. We have checked with Tim as to his speed comfort level, since he is driving a suburban pulling a toy hauler and not a motorhome. We are probably an hour down the road, at this point we are just passing the exit to Patagonia lake (lots of memories as a teenager and young adult spending time with my dad on that lake) and Tracey is checking his mirror constantly. I finally ask if something is wrong to which he says he can longer see Tim and Carrie. He lowers his speed down even farther and after another 5 minutes of so he still cannot see them. He can see Scott and Kerri a little ways back. So I send a text to our group asking if all is well stating we can’t see Tim and Carrie. No response. I then send a text to Kerri and ask if Scott can see them behind him. The answer is no. So I dial Carrie’s number. It rings quite a few times before I hear Carrie’s voice. Barely audibly she says hello, and one short word and I can tell she is crying or extremely upset. I ask her is she is okay, no answer, I ask her where they are and do we need to come back. In between what sounds like sobs and gasping, she gets out the words, “we just, we just, we just”. That is all she was saying over and over again. I once again ask if they are okay to which I can make out the words, “Tim, swerve, lost control, all over the road, screaming “God help us”, median, facing the wrong way” I am in a panic trying to piece the words together to guess what happened. I am not sure I am getting the story correct but right now I just want to make sure they are all okay. I ask again where they are and do we need to come back. This time a little more clearly she tells me they are fine and back on the road. We tell them we are pulling off at exit 302 because the Love’s has a huge parking lot and we can regroup there.
As we drive Tracey asks me “what happened? What was Carrie saying?” I tell him, “I am not sure but it sounds like Tim lost control and swerved all over the freeway ending up in the median facing the wrong way, and all Carrie could do was scream out God help us”. Tracey glances over my way with a very puzzled look on his face. I know I don’t understand either. Tim is a very experienced driver and has pulled trailers for many many years under all kinds of conditions. We say a quick prayer of thanks that they are okay and pray again for safe travels for us all. Kerri as now called asking if we reached Tim and Carrie, I tell her yes and we are all stopping at the Love’s at exit 302
We are not in the Love’s parking lot very long when Scott and Kerri pull in and shortly after them is Tim and Carrie. Tracey and I get out and walk towards Tim and Carrie as they are getting out of their suburban and getting their dogs out to walk them. I give Carrie and hug and say I am glad they are okay. She is still a bit shaken and so is Tim. They start trying to piece the events together as we all walk the dogs. I offer to take one dog and Carrie has the other one and we walk off to let the dogs do their business, leaving the guys behind to chat. Carrie tells me what she can remember and Tim tells Tracey what he remembers. Tim states that what he remembers is in flashes, he remembers feeling the trailer shift, then he remembers looking out and realizing they are headed directly toward the concrete barriers. He then remembers turning the steering wheel away from the barrier and that is when they were swerving back and forth across both lanes of traffic. He recalls at one point looking out his side window and seeing their trailer! (meaning they were jack-knifed) He remembers turning the steering wheel a few times and then a quick pump on the brakes and that is when they went into the median ending up facing the opposite direction they were going and coming to a stop. He remembers Carrie screaming. Now at the beginning of his recount of the event he mentioned a car. During Carrie’s recount she mentioned a car. But neither can tell us what about the car. So after lengthy discussions we are not sure if a car cut them off, or perhaps clipped their trailer, or what exactly happened to set off the series of events that they experienced. There is a dent in the side of the suburban, so the trailer did swing far enough around at some point to hit the suburban. Tim opened the side door of the toy hauler and their rhino had shifted to one side and the straps were undone, and much of their stuff had fallen out of the cabinets onto the floor. So Tim picked up stuff and put it away and then Tracey climbed in and the two of them lifted the rhino back into the center of the trailer and tied it down.
Wow. I am not sure what else to say except Thank you Lord Jesus! I did try to lighten the mood a little and told Tim he has some mad driving skills to which thankfully everyone laughed.
We stayed a little longer at Love’s letting Tim and Carrie regroup and settled their nerves. We walked the dogs again. Tim and Tracey checked over their suburban and trailer one more time checking for causes or damage, to which they found none. Carrie loads their dogs and sits back in the suburban and I head over to finally fill in Scott and Kerri.
This whole time they have just thought we were walking the dogs and regrouping, so I fill them in on as much as I can.
As we load back up, Scott decides Tim and Carrie should be between the two motorhomes as an extra precaution. We enter back on the freeway when Tracey says to me, “Just so you know, if we ended up in the median facing the wrong way, we would be going home!” I chuckle a little but know he is speaking the truth.
Everyone’s nerves are a little on edge, but the rest of our trip was uneventful. We all stop at the Love’s in Lordsburg at exit 20B. Again we really like Love’s and it is our exit to the 90 we need to get to Burro Mountain. Tim gases up and comes around to the truckers side where we are getting diesel. He gives the trailer another once over and says all is fine. We are just 30 miles from our turnoff and it is up the mountain we go. The dirt road, 7 miles of it, seems a bit rougher than in the past. We have stuff shimmying off the counter and falling off the tables. I get everything put back in a safe place and the magazines fall off the table again. I decide this time to leave them on the floor until we get there.
We pull up to the office and I head inside to find out which spot they put us in and I am greeted by Kay, with a big smile and welcoming hello. She is finishing up with another gentleman, so we wait our turn. When she finishes up, she looks up and says “And here is the Hayden group” I smile and love that they remember us. It just warms my heart. She hands me my paperwork showing we are in 8, and I give her a credit card to pay for our stay. I also let her know I need to pay for 13 but we don’t have anyone in that spot. She said if we aren’t going to use it I don’t have to pay for it. I offered again since we didn’t cancel it ahead of time. She assures me it is fine and I don’t need to pay for it. I thank her and step aside so Kerri can pay. Kay hands her paperwork and asks her to fill it out (I guess ours is already on file) And after Kerri is Tim. While they are filling out their paperwork in walks Jim and he says while looking right at me “You are late!” I smile and respond “ Hey good lookin, I know we are sorry, we should have been here yesterday” Jim chuckles a bit and tells me he was so sad he pouted all night long waiting for me to show up. He knows how to make a girl feel good! We walk outside together and he greets Tracey. He tells him to drop the trailer in the usual spot and he will move it over to the parking area until we are ready to head home. We unload the rzr and Tracey introduces me to a guy he had met while I was in the office. He offers to help me carry the gas cans over to our spot. Jim unhooks our trailer, and they hook it to the tractor and off it goes. Tracey backs up to the office so he can then pull into our spot. Scott has pulled into his spot and is unloading his rhino so they can move his trailer. His trailer is much lighter than ours, so can be moved by hand over to the tractor. Tim and Carrie have been guided into their spot and everyone is busy setting up their camp.
I get our motorhome leveled, slides out and begin getting everything organized inside while Tracey does everything outside. He is a little slow going as there are lots of people to talk to. About the time I start to sweat and make my way to the door to ask him to please hook up the electric so I can turn the AC on, he plugs us in. I get my stuff done and fix us some lunch. Caitlynn and I wait for a bit and still no Tracey, I look outside and he isn’t around. So Caitlynn and I start our lunch. We are close to being done when Tracey finally comes inside complaining it is hot. I offer him some lunch which he refuses at first because he is too hot. I explain we tried to get him to come in and eat earlier but we couldn’t find him. He argues he was right here, but in the midst admits he was not here the whole time!