Thursday, April 28, 2011 - Sewemup Mesa Canyon, Gateway CO
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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
Proficiency in Knowledge of the World
There are all degrees of proficiency in knowledge of the world. It is sufficient, to our present purpose, to indicate three. One class lives to the utility of the symbol; esteeming health and wealth a final good. Another class live above this mark to the beauty of the symbol; as the poet, and artist, and the naturalist, and man of science. A third class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing signified; these are the wise men. The first class have common sense; the second, taste; and the third, spiritual perception. Once in a long time, a man traverses the whole scale, and sees and enjoys the symbol solidly; then also has a clear eye for its beauty, and lastly, while he pitches his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature, does not offer to build houses and barns thereon, reverencing the splendor of the God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny.
Essay VII, Prudence Ralph Waldo Emerson