Thursday, April 28, 2011 - Sewemup Mesa Canyon, Gateway CO

Boondocked, Sewemup Mesa, Gateway CO, April 28, 2011

I'm Losing it

Broken Generator Mount, April 28, 2011

Hoo boy, this looks like trouble. I noticed a new creak as I went over a bump pulling into a roadside Point of Interest back in Uravan CO. The pan the generator mounts to cracked and is threatening to drop it on the road. Nineteen years and 130,000 miles have revealed a weak spot in design of the pan. Behind the break is a large rectangular hole for the cooler (that thing you see hanging below the pan to the left of the break) that extends almost to the turned up and now broken lip of the pan.

I can't see any reasonably simple way to stabilize this break out here in the boonies. I need a welding shop - or failing to find one, maybe with some hardware from a Home Depot or Lowes I can jury-rig a temporary fix. In the mean time I don't think a complete drop-the-generator-in-the-road failure is imminent. I hope not. It's 90 miles from Uravan to Grand Junction - with some luck I'll find a welding shop enroute.

Night camp

Boondocked - Sewemup Mesa Canyon, Gateway CO

Verizon cell phone and EVDO service - no signal
Locate Sewemup Mesa Canyon on my Night Camps map
Check the weather here

Heliograph routes of the 1890 Practice

The date was May 15th, 1890, and the Army's Department of Arizona had just completed a major heliograph practice; it was, in fact, the largest the world had ever seen. I call it the "Volkmar Practice", after the man responsible for it, Col. Wm. J. Volkmar, the Assistant Adjutant General and Chief Signal Officer for the Department of Arizona. Although the practice lasted only sixteen days, preparations for it took months of reconnaissance and preparation. Involved in the long range signaling maneuvers were twenty-five heliograph stations stretching from Whipple Barracks near Prescott to Fort Stanton near Ruidoso, New Mexico. My guess is that close to two hundred men were involved, both cavalry and infantry.

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