As usual, nothing mechanical ever goes as planned. While Brett at Bulletproof is trying his very hardest to get our winches installed and the other custom fabrication and welding on Sonja, the job is taking much longer than originally anticipated. You just never know what fun things you'll run into until you start taking things apart and trying to put things back together again. They're going to try to get the front and back winch mounts and new grill guard and lights installed for me by noon today so I can head back to Manley; but we might have to get the winch mount in the bed of the truck completed on another trip. Oh well, the front and back winch mounts are the important ones for safety (i.e. - getting ourselves out of a ditch), while the one in the bed is just handy for dragging logs, moose, and other heavy things up into the bed. We got a removable winch that can be attached to any of these three mounts as the need arises... pretty nifty since you always seem to have a great tow point on the opposite end of the vehicle when you have a permanently mounted winch.
So, I'm seriously hoping that one of our buddies that I called down in Manley got a chance to stop out at the property and let Gungnir know that I was stuck in F'banks another day... otherwise, he's probably freaking right the hell out about now since he was expecting me home last night. I might get home tongiht to find that he shoved Charlie in his jacket and then rode into Manley on the 4-wheeler to see if anyone has heard of my demise from the hospitals, cops, or Dept of Transportation. This has been the only time when it would have been really nice to have a satellite phone at the tent! But I did send him an email in case he drove into town, and I did call Carole (our health aide & friend who would be the person any of the above agencies would contact in case of emergency) and she was going to call around and see if someone could go out to the property for me to keep G-man from losing his mind.
But in any case, I rented a truck while here and got tons and tons of errands run and stocked up on a lot of stuff (temporarily shoved in the storage room). Unfortunately, the truck they rented me was brand new and is a short bed... so no picking up my lumber until after I get Sonja back!! But at least it was a full cab with the short bed, so I could load up on groceries and other supplies that wouldn't scratch the paint and didn't hang out the sides or back :D It's just so weird driving a normal-sized truck... seriously this F-150 feels like I'm driving in a car compared to Sonja. I mean, really, I can just step into this truck and I don't have to climb up the tire in order to reach into the bed.... it feels surreal. It drives nice enough, although doesn't have the git-up-n-go that Sonja's V-10 does, but I'll be happy when I get Sonja back!!
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