Sunday adventure

[John Hofstetter <hofs@domain.elided>]

Reapers and Reaperesses (full grown reapettes)

God, I used to have an Irish lady friend  who got enraged at the Lions 
Club calling their wives Lionesses and Rotarians calling their ladies 
Rotary Anns (sp?). So the greeting is a joke everybody. 

Sunday, I took my wife and Scout up to the lake where one of my sets of 
grandchildren and their parents were camping. My wife, Wanda, wasn't 
feeling very well and went to sleep. A bunch of Jeepers and a Bronco II 
were going to do our areas best known 4WD trail, "Slickrock Trail" and so 
I followed along behind them in my Terra. 

We got about a half mile in with some pretty severe boulder climbing, 
especially for the unmodified Bronco, and all of a sudden, I couldn't 
turn my steering wheel and there was smoke pouring out from under the 
hood. The power steering hose which is about a year old had broken out of 
the crimped coupling. The only tool to loosen the power steering pump so 
that it wouldn't destroy itself pumping empty, was a 15 inch cresent 
wrench that I carry in the Terra for trailer ball changing. My traveling 
tool box was in the GC sitting at home. 

It's a pretty funny sight to see someone undoing a power steering pump 
bracket with a 15" Crescent. Anyway, I was by myself as I encouraged my 
son to go on with the group in his Jeep and I headed back on arm power. 
Man, is it tough to turn that thing in basketball size boulders without 
power steering. My shoulders hurt a lot today. When I finally made it 
back to camp and picked up Wanda, the 60 miles home was really pretty 
easy. Steering goes pretty well when you're moving along on blacktop. It 
was raining buckets, which is very unusual in California this time of 
year and the power steering fluid kept blowing up from the hood opening 
and getting on the windshield. Imagine, if you will, your trusty Scout 
windshield wipers trying to deal with a mixture of oil and water in an 
almost blinding rain storm.  Lots of lessons to be learned from this 
experience, but I probably won't learn them. Can't teach an old dog 
........... etc.

Did you guys include power steering hoses in your list of emergency 
supplies that we worked on a month or two ago? I have never carried an 
extra, but probably will now. 

John H.