The adventure to the ranch

Last weekend, my hubby and I decided to road trip-it down to visit my parents who are currently working at a ranch down near Paso Robles, CA.  The entire trip was an adventure!  

First, we decided to go ahead and drive our older pickup truck the 12 hours or so to visit.  We thought it might be a little iffy, but we had a fresh oil change and air filter and we were on our way! 

The pass near Mt. Ashland was a hairy on the way down, but very pretty!

This was the view from the passenger seat, and this was how Ric felt driving in the slushy snow with our not-so-great tires.....

The trip was going as planned until we had been driving about 6 hours.  I smelled something funny and looked at the gauge for how hot the engine is running...it was overheating.

So we stopped for coffee in a little town called Corning to let the truck cool down, and bought some coolant. After that, we had to stop almost every hour to put water and coolant in.  Not a good sign.

But we made it the remaining 6 hours (well, longer than that as we had to take it easy - more like 8 hours) of driving and arrived at midnight at the ranch.  We retired the truck for the night, excited for horseback riding and ranch tour the next day.

Friday was great!  Dad, Ric and I took a ride on the horses.  

This was my horse, Hank.  He was great!

Here we are all riding down in a dry creek bed.  I took a chance and snapped these while on Hank, but I had to show how close the little tiny dog was walking behind the horse!  Gutsy little dog!

(My dad is right in front of me in the hat, and Ric in front of him.)

After meeting the rest of the farm animals and helping with feeding time,

we went into town for great food and to pick up a thermostat for the truck.  We had high hopes that that was all that was wrong.

We got to stay in the bunk house next door to mom and dad, which was also great!  After a good night of sleep, Dad and I went to work on the truck.  And sadly, it was not the thermostat.  After installing the new one and going for a ride, it was more evident than ever that we must have blown the head gasket.

But that was the day of the big UO Duck game!  So we went into to town to have a few drinks, watch the Duck kick butt (we are going to the Nationals!) and think on the options for getting home.

Option #1- take the train ride back to Oregon (about 20 hrs) 

Option #2 - Try and fix the truck in time to get home and hope that we did not crack a head or do worse damage

Option #3 - Fly home 

Option #4 - Leave the truck with my parents and buy a new car

Can you guess which one won out?

Here is Ric in our new(er) 2009 Kia Rondo!  It is really, really nice.  It is tough to go back to a car payment, but I think it was worth it.

Here are a few more fun pics from the ranch...

Kitty on the hay bales!

This is what I miss about the desert!  So pretty!

Oh and this is ranch cat, Charlie!  He rides on the little Kubota with my dad all the time! :)

Then it was back on the road to home. 

This is Ric happy in our new car.  It was a smoooooth ride home.

With one stop at....

Split Pea Soup Anderson's!  Sooo good!

What a great, and crazy trip!  Thanks again, Mom and Dad!

Ash