Cross Stitch Patterns from Fine Art by Scarlet Quince
 Cart 
 Wish list
     |     
     |     
Check out
     |     
     |     
Wholesale log in
Member services
Scarlet Quince
Goodies
Become a Member

Scarlet Quince Ramblings

Cross stitch ... life ... art

Thanksgiving, Plan B
November 27th, 2009

Our original plans for this week were:
Tuesday: Go out for Ethiopian food.
Wednesday: Go off-roading.
Thursday: Thanksgiving (potstickers).

Early Wednesday, the plans were revised:
Tuesday: Go out for Ethiopian food. done
Wednesday: Be very sick.
Thursday: Go off-roading.
Friday: Thanksgiving (potstickers).

We could have gone off-roading on Friday but it wasn’t supposed to be as nice as Thursday. So I had the most unusual Thanksgiving I’ve had since the year we flew to Louisiana to go birding (we arrived mid-afternoon, weren’t hungry then, and foolishly headed into the boonies thinking we would get something “later”. We didn’t find an open restaurant until about 10 PM.)

Do I hear you saying, “I wouldn’t have guessed you were the off-roading type”? You are absolutely right. But 8 years ago, MRA bought an old Toyota FJ-40 (like a little jeep) and has proceeded to turn it into a monster ORV.

FJ40

I had never been in it. It has only been in the last year that it has gotten to where it is both running and sort of reliable (as in, if you drive it somewhere, you can plan on also driving back). We’ve discussed taking it to Big Bend Ranch to get into the back country but thought it would be a good idea to go somewhere close by first to see if I could stand riding in it at all. So yesterday was finally the day. We went to an “adventure ranch” near Marble Falls which is about an hour from Austin (when you’re pulling a heavy load). I forgot the camera so have no pictures of us plunging over cliffs and climbing vertical surfaces. The step comes about chest level on me, though, so I wouldn’t have been hopping in and out to take pictures anyway. It’s not as noisy as I thought it would be and if you keep moving the exhaust fumes aren’t bad (damned by faint praise, I know). It’s pretty scary jouncing along high off the ground in a vehicle with no doors but once I was strapped in with 4 parts of the 5-point harness I felt safer and eventually stopped gasping at every jolt. There wouldn’t even be much of a story to tell except that we ran out of gas.

Technically, we weren’t OUT of gas but we stalled going up a steep hill and there was no starting again. By amazing luck, we were less than 1/4 mile from the trailer so we took a gas can (I had assumed that they were there for a reason but both were empty), walked back to the truck and tried to siphon some gas out of it (there actually was a siphon). That didn’t work so we had to drive into Marble Falls to fill the gas can but it was only 6 miles. We then drove to the foot of the hill we were stuck on and lugged the gas can up, filled the tank, and we were off. Barely a minor inconvenience and it happened early enough so that we were still home before dark.

So Big Bend Ranch next? Maybe. Probably. MRA says it’s perfectly flat which I know not to be true (I’ve been there) but if we can stay in the canyons and not try to climb the walls, I can do it.

And now on to potstickers. I’ll let you know how they turn out.



Comments are closed.




Privacy policy | Return policy | Site map | Member services | Contact us | Help
Copyright © 2002-2024 Scarlet Quince, LLC. All rights reserved.
You are welcome to link to this page but you may not use words or pictures on another site without written permission.