This Montana Life

Sometimes I wish Embee wouldn’t say some things. Like when he said, “You know, I dread when one morning we wake up and we have a flat tire.” Well, thank the heavens we didn’t have a flat tire. But that would have been preferable.

We were tucked quite cozily next to Lake Arivaca which you get to by traveling 10 miles on a very curvey and pot-holed road to a 2.3 mile dirt road which is very curvey and also very bumpy and full of pot holes. Embee decided to check out why it looked like the tongue was bowing upward. Well, he found out why. Both sides of the frame just aft of the fiberglass body had cracks in them almost all the way through. And along the top. Yikes! This couldn’t have been found when we were in Yuma–of course not. Life can’t be that easy, can it???

So we repacked the weight and redistributed the heavy items so there was as little weight as possible on the tongue. And then we crept at a burro’s pace down the dirt road. 2.3 miles took us over half an hour. Then the paved road was still way bumpy. But we made it back to Arivaca with my knuckles white as I gripped the steering wheel driving forward while looking in my rear view mirror the whole way.

Arivaca is not a large town. Well, I wouldn’t call it a town of much size. But the people there are very nice! Embee, being the gregarious guy that he is, saw two guys standing in front of a Taco Truck and made me pull over. He saunters over to these good ole boys and asks them if there were any welders in town. They said, yep, sure are, but you have to catch them while they’re sober. Ok…not a good start to find a welder close by. But they did point us in the direction of Green Valley and a good guy with an even greater auto shop that took our Burro under their wing and are attempting to weld it back together.

This is where I give a huge Shout Out to Johnnie Lake and his Gasoline Alley repair shop in Green Valley. We pulled in with the Burro and soon there were two guys crawling under the trailer and Johnnie standing there bouncing ideas back and forth to to find the best way to fix Archie. We soon decided they were the guys to fix our woes. Herman (or so the name on his shirt said) was chomping at the bit to find a solution to the cracked frame. Come to find out Herman’s real name was Ward…he was only wearing The Herman shirt.

Ward and Embee at Gasoline Alley

So, while chatting with Herman, and sharing my obsession with vintage trailers he pointed me to a shop just around the corner that had a vintage Airstream Bambi for sale. I skipped down the alley thinking…oh boy oh boy oh boy. If I can buy this baby I would be in 7th Heaven!! Well, I could buy that baby if I had $23,500 smackeroos in my pocket. Which I don’t. So we just drooled over it and coveted it. I guess it was restored by Ken Faber and I have to say he did a fabulous job. This 16 footer had a bathroom/shower combo as well as a 3-burner stovetop, a dometic refrigerator, and a sweet sink. Someday I hope to get my hands on one of these to restore…..dreaming dreaming dreaming.

So tonight Embee and I are snugged into the Best Western in Green Valley sleeping in real beds and taking real hot showers. I think I’m going to take two tonight, and another two in the morning. Might as well get them in the bank for the next few weeks without them.