Tuesday, October 12, 2010 - Drive Day to Walsenburg, CO

Today was the ultimate test for the new truck, the day we had to cross over the Rocky Mountains. Route 160 isn't quite as steep as I-70 through Denver, but rather is a longer climb with more switchback-type roads. The new truck was fabulous! Never even cracked 200 degrees on either the engine or transmission temperature gauges, despite the long, long uphill grade. I even had to pass a couple of semis, just for fun. Downhill, which is often even more harrowing than going uphill (with the van I was always having to downshift the transmission and be very careful about managing the brakes on both the RV with the hand brake controller and the van, to make sure they didn't overheat to the point of losing them or burning them out), the truck was a dream! The engine did it's own down-shifting! All I had to do was touch the brakes, and it would figure out what speed I wanted to go and would shift down until we stayed at the speed, despite whatever the grade was like. I hardly ever had to even touch the brakes at all! Hubby thought there was something wrong with my brake lights, because he had never seen me go down a hill without them coming on every few seconds. No matter how steep it was, the truck just figured it out and did all the work for me. Genius! That was when I decided on the name of this new truck: Einstein. It was such fun! I hadn't realized how much stress I had been under with the van, I had just done what needed doing, though there were times where it was a bit white-knuckle, but I just coped. Now, I'm suddenly spoiled, and it feels so wonderful! Obviously, buying this truck was one of the best decisions we've made in a long time, especially as we plan on horse camping across America for a long time to come! Hubby's enjoying the van, and it pulls the horse trailer with no trouble at all, though he did think it got a little hot coming up the mountains, but he had had a mechanic tell him last year that the radiator fan was getting weak and was likely to cause problems later, so he's going to check it out at the ranch and likely replace it, and that should solve the problem. Meanwhile, even though we had run into some rain coming through LaVeta pass, we arrived comfortably and relaxed at our client's ranch just around 4:00, (we had breakfast at a Denny's, so we didn't need to stop for lunch) giving us plenty of time to get settled in before dark. The horses had to go into a different pasture than last time, as the neighbor's who looked after the place had put theirs in the one we had used previously, so they had more exploring to do. The dogs ran all over, re-establishing their dominance and wondering where the dog who usually lives here was (at the kennel while the owner was on the campaign trail), and we got the RV and the satellite dish up and running in no time. To bed early after our two days of driving!