The Project actually was started about a month ago…
Written in bits and pieces on scrap paper and time spent on the internet researching and on phone calls ordering and questioning.
Until about a week ago when production started on a water tank…
(One thing about ranchers… they are great at recycling… way before any “green” movement told us to reuse… it’s called “not being wasteful”… and they are GOOD AT IT!)
The water tank existed in the “junk pile” up at the Mills place.
It was a bit rusted through on the bottom…
Never fear…
Just turn it upside down, cut out the rusted section for the top opening… weld on a few inlets and outlets from more old recycled pipe and ta-da! you’ve built a “new” storage tank to put in our pipeline that was originally built in the 1940’s.
It was about time for an update.
The pipeline is for water for our cows… see, cows are behind everything we do… it’s just not easy to see sometimes…
Anyway, I’m getting away from my story.
This pipeline exists in the bottom of Otter Creek Canyon.
I say it is 500′ deep.
Vernon says it is 460′ (the last 40′ is how far off from vertical the edge of the canyon is).
I figure if you lose your pickup brakes on top, you’ll have traveled 500′ down before you smash into smithereens and they have to come scrape you off the rocks at the bottom.
Therefore the canyon is 500′ deep.
The road down to the bottom of little ol’ Otter Creek Canyon, however, is about 8.5′ wide.
EIGHT AND A HALF FEET WIDE.
I kid you not.
That’s what it feels like when you are driving down it.
I know.
Pickups are eight feet wide.
Therefore that road is eight and a half feet wide.
There goes Vernon on the little excavator.
Here’s the first (and my least favorite) turn. I figure if I lose my brakes here… it will be about 1,460′ down at this point… Vernon disputes this. Go ahead and take sides… but first, YOU GO LOOK OVER THE EDGE AND THEN TELL ME HOW FAR DOWN IT IS!
Have I confessed that I have a recurring nightmare about losing my brakes??? It’s true. I should be awarded the Purple Heart for Ranchwives for doing something like this that scares the snot out of me… sorry. I’m suffering a little Post Traumatic Stress…
<sigh>
When I drove down the other day… I didn’t really take many photos for some reason.
But today, crammed into the middle of the pickup, through the filthy windshield, I took this one.
Somehow…
Somehow…
It doesn’t look QUITE as scary.
All I know is… the farther down I get…
the lower my blood pressure goes as well.
When you finally hit that hairpin turn, where you MUST backup and turn the corner some more because you can’t do it in one simple turn… You’ve basically made it.
It’s time to unclench my hands and massage some blood back into my knuckles.
I realize I’ve been holding my breath for the past two hours and twenty minutes, however long it took us to drive the .6 mile trip…now I can breathe the canyon air in my lungs and the re-oxygenated blood lets me realize I’ve entered a Lost World.
Find me here!