HELPING OUT SOME FELLOW CANADIANS

MONDAY DEC 24/07
Butch came by with his truck & a bunch of rope at 7:45 this morning & we headed over to the folks truck & trailer who were stuck in the sand about a quarter mile behind us. Their names are Julie & Rob & they are from Alberta, Canada. Julie had tried in vain the previous night to get their road assistance company to send a tow truck out to their location. Cell phone reception is spotty here plus she had trouble with the person at the other end of the line understanding their location & true predicament so it didn't look too promising for them to get their rig out of the sand any time soon.

We were going to try & hook Butch's truck up with an assortment of raggle taggle ropes to Rob's Ford & see if that would work. (it probably wouldn't have) By a stroke of good fortune, a supervisor at the road assistance company came on shift last night & noticed Julie's call had come in & gone unresolved. She phoned Julie & Rob last night & offered to get them a tow truck out to their location right away but by that time it was late & Julie said this morning would be fine. The lady was very apologetic & admitted that Julie's previous call had not been handled properly. I thought that was extremely thoughtful & considerate of that supervisor person. Nice to see she took the time & made the effort to have the job done right.

The AAA flat bed tow truck rolled in about 9:15 & positioned itself on the solid gravel road bed about 70 feet from the front end of Rob's truck. It had a 75 foot winch cable so it was good that we had been able to move that truck & trailer ahead the night before about 15 feet. The winch cable was hooked on & the slow winching procedure began. Truck & trailer moved steadily across the desert floor only bogging down once. The tow truck driver re-positioned his truck & a few minutes later the big black Ford 350 & it's heavy 30+ foot Presidential travel trailer were up out of the soft sand & on the solid gravel road. A big sigh of relief from everyone for a job well done because it sure saved all of us a lot of digging, pushing, & tugging to-day. And a big thanks to a special lady supervisor at the road emergency assistance place.

The rest of the day was quiet. Butch needed some propane & we needed some water so we all drove into Borrego Springs, grabbed a bite to eat, picked up some things at the hardware store, a few groceries, propane, water, etc. Back out to the desert & the rest of the day we spent relaxing, soaking up some rays & basically just doing a whole lot of nothing. I think the temperature may have hit the 80F mark & it was definitely the hottest day of our trip so far. Nice camp fire to-night as we sat outside & watched the big December moon slowly rise over the Santa Rosa mountains. A nice way to spend Christmas Eve. No stress, no rushing around & no commitments. Last year we spent Christmas Eve in Poncho Villa State Park in New Mexico. The year before was spent in snowy cold Bayfield & the year before that Christmas Eve for us was happily spent in the Rio Grande Village RV campground in Big Bend National Park, Texas. Don't know where we will be next year but as long as it's somewhere where we can sit around a warming campfire on Christmas Eve will be just fine with us.................:))