Last year when we were here in Cortez, we met a couple at the farmers’ market that have a small ranch. Their names are Bob and Carolyn Ower, and they sell fresh eggs, produce and beef from their ranch. I wrote about visiting their place here. Last week, Donna contacted Carolyn to see about getting some eggs.
We went to their place on Saturday and had a nice visit. Carolyn kindly gifted Donna with a dozen farm fresh eggs and a couple of zucchini squashes. Carolyn’s eggs always look like Easter eggs because she keeps a variety of chicken breeds and they lay different colored eggs.
A strange thing happened as we were leaving. As I started to pull out of their driveway, our truck suddenly lost all power and wouldn’t rev above idle. I shut off the engine, waited about 10 seconds and restarted. It ran fine but the check engine light as well as the traction control symbol were illuminated. Lucky for us, it happened in the Owers driveway – Bob runs a small auto repair shop on the property. He was kind enough to connect a scan tool and read the fault codes. We had P2127 and P2138. These relate to an accelerator pedal position error.
Bob cleared the codes and they didn’t return. The most likely cause of the error is a bad pedal position sensor – modern cars are drive-by-wire, there’s no cable providing a physical connection between the accelerator pedal and throttle. It’s strictly electrical with a pedal position sensor and an actuator at the throttle valve. I’m still debating whether I should order a new pedal assembly which includes the sensor or not. The fault hasn’t returned and I don’t like throwing parts at a sporadic fault.
Sunday, while I watched the Formula 1 race from Monaco, Donna hiked the Sand Canyon Trail. The full trail is about 6.5 miles – she started at the bottom and the full length to the top gains significant elevation. Donna went about four miles up, then turned back. She saw many cliff dwellings – ruins from an ancient Pueblo tribe. Here are a few photos she took on her hike.
We had some rain on Friday and high winds which carried over to Saturday. The temperatures were much cooler – officially the high on Friday is listed at 66 degrees, but I don’t think we reached that here in the RV park. The night time temperatures really dropped with lows around 32 degrees over the weekend.
I put up my HF ham radio antenna – a Buddipole Versatee Vertical – Monday and broke out my ham radio rig. Conditions were good Monday afternoon and I made contact with Janez Celarc (S51DX) in Vhrnika, Slovenia – about 6,000 miles from Cortez, Colorado. I had talked to Janez last year when we were in Idaho. He was working a contest this time and didn’t want to chat – he was trying to record as many North America contacts as possible in a given amount of time. He just took my name, callsign and location, then moved on to the next contact.
As I’ve mentioned many times before, we’re not camping, we’re living the RV lifestyle. We strive to eat fresh cooked homestyle meals that are nutritious and healthy, just like we did in a sticks-and-bricks house. On Saturday, I made Japanese fried rice and Donna grilled jumbo shrimp to go with it. Delicious.
We love fried rice and I make use of any leftovers. On Sunday, I made omelettes filled with fried rice for breakfast.
Last night, Donna grilled zucchini marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, salt and pepper. After grilling, she sprinkled the zucchini with a mixture of chopped kosher salt and lemon zest. It was a great accompaniment to spaghetti with clam sauce.
Tomorrow is Donna’s birthday. Traditionally we go out for a nice dinner at a restaurant of her choice. Last year we were in Springerville on her birthday and with covid restrictions, we had to settle for Chinese take-out. This time we have a reservation for dinner tomorrow at Olio Restaurant in Mancos. Olio is run by chef Jason Blankenship and his wife, Michelle. Chef Jason has 25 years experience as a chef in the Houston, Texas area and Durango, Colorado. His restaurant here is exclusive – it’s only open Thursday, Friday and Saturday – reservations are required. The menu changes weekly and everything is prepared by Chef Jason – no big kitchen staff. We’re really looking forward to it and I’ll tell you all about it in my next post.
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