Last Sunday Jazz and I started on a road trip I’ve been planning for months. The plan for Day 1 was simple. I’d get everything set up at home, do the last minute packing, load Jazz, and drive to Grass Valley. I was headed for my brother and sister-in-law’s place in Montague, CA., but that’s a long drive. It had also been over a year since I had visited Debbie and Eitan Beth-Halachmy at Wolf Creek Ranch in Grass Valley, so I was going to break up the trip at their place. I had planned to go from there to Old Station in the Lassen National Forest, but due to a squirrel, that plan got chnaged. Moral of this story: always check under the hood for rodents!!
My preparations for the trip
It’s not like I just threw a bunch of stuff in the trailer (including the horse) and started driving. I had had the truck serviced at Porterville Ford in May. I changed the tires on the trailer around the same time, at Big Brand Tires. (Love this place. They check all my tires on truck and trailer any time I ask.) I had my horse Jazz reshod last Friday. I’d even made furniture for my pretty basic trailer (blog post coming up!).
But I did not check under the hood for resident squirrels.
The break down
I loaded Jazz and was heading down the road by 11. My route led to Highway 99, which I would follow till I80 in Sacramento. I stopped at the Love’s off Jack Tone Road in Ripon to fuel up. It is possible that the squirrel was there and decided to hitchhike. Not likely but it also seems unlikely that a squirrel would make it from Springville to Sacramento…
All went well until I was heading out of Sacramento on I80, about 25 miles from Auburn. I was in the second from the left lane on a four lane stretch when the truck beeped and flashed a “too hot” warning. The battery light was on (maybe it had been on? It’s not really noticeable.) The truck slowed down–I had been going 62 mph on cruise control. I put on my signal and started to move right. That’s when I discovered I didn’t have power steering.
It’s really hard to steer a one ton truck with a even a light trailer without power steering. Luckily the traffic wasn’t heavy and people were nice. Not only did I not have power steering, the truck was also not going anywhere. It had shut off to keep itself from destruction-by-heat. Luckily there were two offramps coming up quickly. I missed the first, but there was a huge shoulder just before the second… and the truck made it there.
F350 diesels won’t self-destruct
At least not these newer models. They get hot, they stop. The engine didn’t turn off (I had to do that). But it wouldn’t go anywhere. So I waited for it to cool, read the manual (useless), googled, called my brother Nick. He helped me troubleshoot and offered to send a CHP officer to sit behind me. I told him I was in a good place and din’t need that (and he could look with Find My).
Recommendations:
- Share your location. Use Find my or the Android equivalent so your family/friends can know where you are without you having to figure it out and communicate it. 99% of the time, you’ll never use it. You probably won’t even remember you shared your location and you will find yourself giving detailed instructions with no need. But it’s very useful if something happens.
- Encourage your sibling or close friend to become a high patrol officer. True, you’ll worry about them, but on the other hand, they will have a wealth of useful information stored in their brain. And they can help in times of need. OK fine. Obviously you have no control over what your loved ones choose to do with their lives, but it is nice when they dedicate themselves to supremely stressful prosocial professions such as law enforcement or, in the case of my sister-in-law Wendy, nursing. Nick and Wendy walk around with an amazing amount of useful information in their heads.
Above: I parked along Auburn Blvd. and waited for rescue. I had to take everything out of the bed of the truck!
Getting rescued
Once the truck had cooled down enough to drive, I pulled off the freeway onto Auburn Avenue. I still didn’t know what was wrong and was perplexed. Diesels don’t heat up easily, and there was no real reason for it to have problems. Nick suggested it could be a belt… I couldn’t tell if the fan was turning on so I drove down the street for half a mile–enough to see that I was not going to make it to Auburn. I pulled over again and posted on the AERC Facebook page.
The true benefit of social media
I spend a lot of time bemoaning the evils of social media. The truth is that a lot of people really don’t know how to use sites like Facebook responsibly. So many are on social media to find their favorite echo chambers or to freely attack others’ opinions behind the safety of a screen. But on the other hand, for finding support in specific, targeted communities, it’s priceless. Within minutes of my post on the AERC page, Diana Mittelberger had offered her help.
Diana would drive down from Auburn and haul my trailer to Deb and Eitan’s for me. While I was waiting for her, I called AAA and asked for a tow. As I was arranging the tow, Marisa Gonzales showed up with her father. She had read my post onthe AERC page while at the gas station on the corner near me. She looked up, saw a truck and trailer, assumed it was me, and called her father, who’s a mechanic. He took a look under my hood and pointed out that where there should be a serpentine belt (drive belt), there was none.
Diana and Marisa made it into this story because they were amongst the earliest to respond. There were many others who offered their help too, and I am so very grateful to be part of such a supportive community. It’s easy to lose sight of how kind most people are, because much of the activity on social media (even on the AERC page) tends to be less than kind. (See my post How to discourage questioning in an online horse forum.) But when it comes down to it, when it came down to it on Sunday, people went above and beyond to help out.
What to do with my truck
There was a Ford dealership within 5 miles, so if it had been a weekday, I would have taken it there and begged for a quick fix. (Replacing a serpentine belt is fast and easy.) However, it was Sunday and I was headed for Grass Valley. I decided to have it towed to Auburn Ford. I called them and left a message.
The AAA driver was worried they wouldn’t have a key box (what autoshop doesn’t?) so we had to follow him to Auburn just in case I needed to take the key. Fortunately they didof course have a key box so we proceeded to Deb and Eitan’s.
Diana delivered us to Wolf Creek Ranch
To understand how indebted I am to Diana you must realize that to get to Deb and Eitan’s is an ordeal of slow curvy roads. The best way to get to their place on Norvin way is slow and arduous. Luckily Diana has driven all over the place. She asked if I wanted to drive, but by that time I realized she had far more experience towing than I did so I told her I’d rather she did!) So even though it’s not that far from Auburn, it takes a long time.
The nice thing is that Diana and I got to know each other a bit. She works at Animal Spay and Neuter in Auburn. (I’ve just had a look at their website to clear up confusion, and she is Chairperson of the Board.) When I said how thankful I was, she said it was a pleasure to be able to help someone. I couldn’t help thinking that running a spay and neuter clinic means you are helping someone (animals and humans) all the time! Dealing with pets and their owners is super difficult too. Veterinarian is one of the most stressful professions. (Read my old post on the Stress of being a vet.) There’s a reason (there are many reasons) we need more vets.
It was 7:30pm by the time I had unloaded Jazz and unhitched the trailer. I waved goodbye to Diana and headed up to the house to find Deb and Eitan.
Recommendations:
- Become a member of online communities that support your favorite hobbies and/or professions.
- If you are going to break down while pulling your horse in a trailer, procure to do so near a horse friendly region. Bonus points if it’s near the capital of your sport. Auburn is the center of endurance riding!
- Pay for AAA Premiere. The phone line gets you much faster service.
- Avoid Dog Bar Road coming from the south (I80) if you are towing. You might have to get helicoptered out if your rig is too long and you get stuck on a bridge. No that did not happen to me this time, but three years ago my boyfriend and I almost didn’t make it. Fortunately he was driving 😉
The extra time at Wolf Creek Ranch
If things had gone as planned, I’d have left after breakfast Monday. Instead, I called Auburn Ford at 7:30 (when they opened) and put on metaphorical big eyes. They promised to replace the belt and try to figure out why it failed. As long as the cause wasn’t complicated, it should be done by that afternoon.
Once that was sorted, I got Jazz out. He was in a big paddock on the hill near the house, ideal for breaking up a long drive. I wanted to ride, but first, he needed to be introduced to Eitan’s arena. It’s full of scary things, and Debbie would not want Jazz being psycho–snorty-horse while they were working horses later in the morning.
Above: An old picture of Eitan’s fun-filled arena.
Jazz gets a refresher
Surprisingly, Jazz was relatively undisturbed by the colorful obstacles in the big arena. I turned him loose there, and then in the outdoor roundpen. It has an alarmingly low rail, so I took him into the indoor roundpen. Last week Jazz spooked when he flipped his tail over my nylon saddle bags (he is weird about sounds), so I used Eitan’s heavy black flag to remind him of his desensitization. Then I turned him out for a quick break before riding.
Time for a ride
After a quick call to Auburn Ford to make sure they hadn’t forgotten me, I saddled Jazz up and rode down to the arena. Eitan was there with Lisa, the brave woman who is riding the horses three days a week. Debbie was on her way down with her mare Kit.
I was worried Eitan would have something to say about Jazz’s sad lack of training, but Jazz made me look good. He only tossed and shook his head once. (He shakes his head when he doesn’t want to do whatever it is I put in front of him.) I’m sure it was partly because it was all new and interesting. It’s really good for horses to do things out of their normal routine. Jazz and I did all but the most challenging obstacles. True, he did trip and fall going over some cavaletti made for rocket scientists. I even had the GoPro on for that one, but I don’t want to embarras him so I won’t share. Below you can see him negotiating the line of obstacles (relatively) successfully.
The reason for the broken serpentine belt…
Auburn Ford called around one to say the belt was replaced and it looked like a squirrel had caused the problem. They would clean it up as best they could, and I could come pick it up. Debbie drove me into Auburn–another great opportunity to talk! I’ve known Debbie since I was a child, and she always has good life advice for me.
Now, when they said squirrel, I assumed it had been eating the belt. I’d never heard of belts being eaten (rodents go for wiring), but hey you never know. I was wondering idely about “clean it up” but I still didn’t imagine the belt had broken because a squirrel had gotten trapped in it! This summons lots of images to my mind… The squirrel hanging on for dear life just under the hood for 250 miles, just to finally collapse and get whipped into the belt. Why it didn’t bail at the Love’s is beyond me. Or maybe it was at Love’s and wanted to hitchhike!
Who knows. But from now on, I am going to check under the hood before leaving.
The good news is that Jazz and I were on our way by 3pm
I had decided to drive straight to my brother’s place rather than go to Lassen. Just in case the truck wasn’t truly fixed. A lot of AT&T-free terrain in national forests.
The truck didn’t break down, and we got to Montague safely well before dark. Next up: our adventures in the far north of California.