The Maiden Voyage

I'm not sure if that's what you call it when you first take a buggy out for a spin or if that title is reserved for sea craft only. I guess I'll borrow the term if you don't mind. This past Monday evening I headed out to Nevada to do some business at our truck wash and to pick up Dan, our buggy horse. It was a productive couple of days out in Wells, NV. I took my harness and shavs out so my dad, who can still fix anything, could fit them properly to Dan. Tuesday afternoon my dad called me to let me know he'd caught Dan to begin the fitting and Dan had re-injured his back leg and wasn't sound. In fact he was favoring it a lot and not getting around to well. I was devastated. Here I finally had my buggy, but now my buggy horse was lame. I came home from the truck wash early so I could see how Dan was and to learn about my harness. I pulled up to my folks home and Pops had Dan tied up and harnessed. Dan is a beautiful dark bay horse. As you can see in the photos he's tall, lean and handsome. My dad came out and he showed me all the adjustments he'd made to make my harness work on Dan. He'd done a lot of work to it and had put hooks on the single-tree so the tugs would stay on. Dan was limping pretty bad. We turned him out for the night.

The next day as I headed into to Wells to spend the day at the truck wash I had a major blowout on the front passenger side of my truck. My front tires were nearing the end of their road but I thought I had at least enough life in them to get me back to Utah. It was a pretty scary couple of moments. I had just entered the freeway at the Welcome exit. I was getting up to speed and something told me I should slow it down, that something wasn't right. As I slowed to about 65 all of a sudden my tire came apart and I was all over the road. I pulled off onto the shoulder and assessed the damage. It wasn't pretty. I learned how to use my jack and the special key that inserts through a hidden hole in the rear bumper to release the spare tire. I'm glad I read the owner's manual. I was about to tear into with my own tools and that could have ended badly. I replaced my over sized tire with the much smaller spare tire and limped myself into town. I decided I needed to replace my tires before heading back to Utah so I took my truck down to Les Shwabb Tires. My buddy Chad sold me some tires that had to come from Elko so I left my truck for the afternoon.

I went with Tabor and our chemical dealer Tommy to see some land and then to my folks house to pick up my trailer and Dan so I could head home when we got back to Wells. As we neared home I remembered that the trailer which actually I'd borrowed from my buddy Jared required a 2 and 5/16 inch ball. I knew Tabor's was a 2 inch. I checked with my dad and he only had a 2 inch. He called my uncle Drew and he had the right one on his dump truck. We headed over their and helped him take it off only to find that it was too large to bolt onto Tabors receiver hitch. Talk about a buggy ride.... We decided to just take it slow and try to keep Dan toward the front to keep the weight on the tongue so as not to dislodge it from the ball. This would have been a little more comforting to do if number one, it was my trailer. Number two if both Tabor and Tommy hadn't rolled trailers themselves with horses in them, and three if the trailer that Tommy had rolled hadn't been the exact model as Jared trailer that we were attempting to do this with! A little stressful to say the least. Did I mention what a buggy ride?

We made it into town with no trouble. I picked up my truck and made the necessary preparations for my journey back to Utah and I left.

I pulled into our yard at about 12:45 am. I unloaded Dan and put him in his corral. I watered him and fed him and wished him well for the evening. He was a good sport through it all.

This brings us to Thursday morning. A tad early I might say. Later in the evening after perhaps 239 requests from Isaiah for a buggy ride, I went out and checked Dan to see how his foot was. I led him around and he walked without a limp. I told him maybe we could take a short ride. I was thrilled that he was sound. I hadn't got my hopes up all day because I knew if he was limping we wouldn't be able to go.

I caught Dan and proceeded to harness him. I backed him between the shavs and Jen held his head while I hooked him to the buggy. Jen captured the experience with her camera. I got on the buggy and we were off...around the neighborhood. I took the first run solo to make sure everything worked out and that Dan was ready for the paved roads of North Ranch. He did fine and we pulled back in to make some quarter-strap adjustments and to pick up my anxious passengers Isaiah and Luke.

Again we headed down the driveway and up the street at Isaiah's requested medium pace. It was wonderful. It was a beautiful evening with a light breeze and a perfect temperature. We clopped along and waved to many of our neighbors and talked with several of them. Isaiah was on the seat with me and Luke was on my lap, between my legs, under the seat and for awhile in the back. It was a juggling act to say the least, to keep the brake on enough going down hills so it didn't run up on Dan, to drive and to keep tabs on a curious Luke. As I pulled up to our driveway I was caught in some indecision as to whether we were going another round or stopping for the evening as it was getting dark. Luke saw our house and wanted to go there. Isaiah decided he'd had enough and I was part way off to another round when I decided to pull into the driveway. We took the turn a bit wide and we nicked the front wheel on the fence corner post. I knew we were close and then I heard a sharp crack and down went the single-tree. I stopped Dan and Jen came out to help me unload my passengers. I unhooked Dan and assessed our broken situation. The tenon joints that hold the brace between the shavs had each snapped. Turns out those two tenon joints were the only thing pulling the entire buggy. Not a real solid design.

I was pretty sad about our unfortunate breakage and what it meant for future buggy rides. I guess at the end of the day it's just another buggy ride.