Day 38

This is our little caravan. Les driving the Budget truck, DJ with his Dodge diesel and my little trailer, and me with Les's GMC diesel with the 16' trailer and the Polaris.

After being out in the desert until 1am the night before last, we slept until 8:00 yesterday morning.  We called our good friend, Tom, who rents Budget trucks.  He immediately got on the phone to get our broken down truck repaired or replaced.  As it turned out, it couldn't be repaired.  Our only option was to get a replacement truck.

Budget was kind enough to supply us with 3 "professional" movers who emptied the truck that Les and DJ packed to the gills.  They took all day to move almost all of our belongings to another 24' truck.  I say "almost" because they couldn't quite fit it all. 

My friend, Ann, is one of the best people on this earth.  She helped us empty our hovel and load up the truck.  She commented that it was like the loaves and the fishes how Les was able to organize the truck.  Every time she looked it seemed that there was even more room in the truck.  (Les is a very organized person.)

Anyway, long story short... we had to fit the remaining items into our pickup trucks.  And after spending the entire day in the parking lot in Lancaster, we were finally on our way again at 6:00 PM.  What a nightmare!  We could only make it to Needles before exhaustion took over.  We had to stop for the night just a few short miles from the California-Arizona border.

Today, we drove through Arizona and  made it as far as Albuquerque.  Tomorrow, with any luck, we should be coming into Trinidad by early afternoon.

I asked Mike Taillon, a Trinidad General Contractor, to give us a hand with the estimates so that we can present our paperwork to the bank.  All we need now is to get our Builder's Risk insurance and hopefully, with Mike's help, the bank will be ready to review our loan.  Please say prayers!