THIS IS MY STORY ( CONT. ) - Part 2

While planning this vacation, I came across a magazine article about the Chaco ruins ( may have been National

Geographic ). I read with interest and anticipation, however the article had a sidebar recommending care be taken because of the isolated location, rough dirt road 50 - 60 miles long with very few travelers. Specifically the sidebar recommended a full fuel tank and a spare set of fan belts. This seemed good advise as I was traveling in a Jeep Wagoneer , which was a new concept vehicle at that time. I headed to the dealer and they had two of the five belts on the engine. They ordered the other three for me. The advise to carry spare belts sounded good to me because of another previous experience.

When I was in college and dating my wife-to-be, I was driving a MG midget sports car. I drove to Clovis, New Mexico to visit her and her family. I then drove her back to college in Las Cruces, New Mexico (NMSU). somewhere along the way my fan belt snapped. We hitch hiked to the next little town of four or five buildings. One of these buildings was a full service gas station. I marveled at several hundreds of fan belts that occupied one whole wall of this station . I was very lucky they had a belt to fit my foreign sports car. We hitched a ride back and only lost a couple of hours, but I was extremly embaressed.

A couple of months later we began our expedition. Chaco Canyon was very interesting as we really don't know much about the Anasaizi (anchient ones ) that lived there or why they left the site. The trip continued and took us to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks, and of coarse Disneyland.

My wife and I, our two young kids, my sister and her schoolmate friend camped out in tents and the back of the Wagoneer all along the way. All vacations come to an end and we headed home traveling I-10 from LA to Phoenix, Tucson, and eastward to New Mexico.

I think this was a Sunday because there wasn't much traffic or maybe it was because it was so hot. Somewhere east of Tucson and west of Benson, Arizona the eastbound lanes and westbound lanes were (and still are) separated and far apart. Just as we approached this area we began to see detour signs and we were diverted to the westbound right lane. This put us on effectively a two lane road with traffic coming towards us in the left lane. This ended up a very long detour because, I guess, there was a bridge or something out on the eastbound I-10 lanes. Suddenly I heard a loud noise in the back of the Jeep. I had a flat on the right rear. I quickly slowed down, but there was no shoulder to pull off the road on the right side safely. Luckily, I finally came upon a graveled clear spot on my right just big enough for the Wagoneer. ( story continued on next post)