Luck

Sometimes you feel like you have bad luck, sometimes you feel like you have good luck.  Sometimes you get really freakin lucky.  Today was one of those days for me.

I overnighted in Gunnison, CO last night after doing some backcountry skiing on Monarch pass.  I’ve been out in the boondocks attempting some 14ers, but today was a travel day.  My ski partners have all gone back to Avon so I journeyed alone to southwest Colorado.

I drove about 6 hours today through the very sparsely populated lower left quadrant of CO, passing through about 3 towns of any real size.  I stopped a few times to cook lunch, get gas, etc.  Every time that I restarted the van after stopping, she fired right off like the van has every time I’ve tried to start her.

Keep in mind I crossed several mountain passes in a vigorous springtime snowstorm.  Here is a picture of the road I drove (in slightly worse conditions than I found it).

The picture is to show where I could have broken down.  The middle of nowhere. In an avalanche path.  In a snowstorm.  Instead of a shoulder, you have a 55 degree slope of death into a river of ice. The closest mechanic is 85 miles away.

Today, I am lucky because Aunt B (my van) chose to break down in Durango.  I was coming into town, picked up a hitchhiker, took her into downtown, then drove to an outdoor store for to get my boots worked on.  I came outside and the van wouldn’t crank. 😦  The good news is I am fairly certain what the problem is and it shouldn’t be too bad of a fix.

Since I am currently parked about 50 yards from the Animas river, I am now living in a broken down van, down by the river.

New name for the van after this weekend:

“Base Camp”