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So Brou is likely to survive, thanks only to Marks' fortitude and love for that little red dog and to his stubborn full-sized Dodge Ram. The roads were and are still nasty, so nasty in fact that the BLM has banned all heavy commercial trucks from coming out into the canyon until further notice. They are even patrolling the 'roads' and awarding heavy fines to transgressors. This will likely affect the supply of clean burning natural gas heading to green California as many wells drop or cease production. As we say around here at the rat when the kitty boys complain about their hard life, "Oh ... po', po' boys!" Hey, it's hard to work up a good case of sympathy when this ugly and sometimes dangerous infrastructure is sitting in your backyard and you can't enjoy any of its benefits.
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I also credit the journey's success to our procrastination on removing the last load of heavy siding panels from Mark's truck. Without their extra weight, I doubt that he could have made the emergency trek into town and back. The road conditions are such that even the lighter gas field vehicles ceased coming up this far a week ago for wise corporate safety reasons. We have come to understand that if the gas industry considers the risks too great, then we should pay serious attention as well. Before the Brou emergency, we had already decided to wait out the dangerous road conditions, for weeks if necessary.
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Although Mark was able to set off with Brou while the roads were still firmed up a little by the bitter cold of the night, it was a mixed blessing. Ice is just like that, often not any better than the slick clay slime revived by the melting heat of the sun - you may not get stuck but you can still slide off the roads. He would have to face the worst of both road worlds that day.
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He carefully minced his way five miles down our road towards the main canyon. As Virgil had promised, a load of large rocks had been dumped into our muddy creek crossing to sate its muddy appetite. Since the main canyon waterway had already begun to run, eliminating our usual crossing to the main road, he had to use the alternate route on this side of the canyon. We call this route "the goat path". Alternate route is hardly a fitting term. Think of the roads in the Wily Coyote cartoons, those high ledge paths where the coyote always met unexpected oncoming traffic with dire consequences. Even in dry weather, this road can take your breath away as the truck hood noses out and hides the edge of the road in sharp turns, revealing only the landscape and maw of the wash 100 or more feet below. There are turns so sharp that you'd swear you could catch a glimpse of the truck's rear end by looking out the side window as it seemingly twists itself in half to make the bend. Neither of us could imagine meeting an oncoming vehicle and having to decide who was going to give quarter on this barely one vehicle wide road. These thoughts were ever on my mind as I mentally paralleled this part of Mark's journey that morning, ever alert for a cell phone call from him and wondering if he would even be within the cell network's spotty coverage out here if he ran into trouble. Could my lighter, lower Dakota even reach him to perform a rescue? Probably not.
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By the grace of kind fate, he ran the goat path without meeting another vehicle, crossed the small wash which had been thankfully dry and made it over the bridge to the main road. The main road was hardly in better condition and he skipped around, either straddling or being entrained by choppy, icy ruts as much as two feet deep. Just before reaching our third closest neighbor's place some eleven miles away, he slammed down into a small wash so hard that his head jammed into the roof of the cab and he slowed to a stop to see if poor old Brou was still on the rear seat or now plastered to some new and unlikely part of the truck interior.
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After pacing out my estimated two hours to pavement time, I was reassured by his voice that they were already on pavement and headed to the vet's. One half of the ordeal down ... just the really tricky half left now.
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to be continued
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Update: Brou is coming home tomorrow unless the weather turns sour tonight!
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