Back to work again.....

 6:42 am - Sunday - March 17th - GNHS - 51° F, humidity 99%, wind 2 mph out of the north by northeast....mostly sunny today with a forecast high of 72° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were in Thibodeaux, LA attending a Zydeco Music Festival at Nicholls State University.....

Before I get into what happened Saturday I have a confession to make.  I neglected to recognize the birthday of our 1982 Newell Classic.  She was delivered to her original owner, Leonard Law, on March 1, 1982.  On March 1, 2024 she celebrated her 42nd birthday....

....we, ironically, took possession of her on March 1, 2008.  After taking delivery we drove to a local RV park near Desert Hot Springs where we spent our first night living in her.  We drove her back to our home in Ontario, CA the next morning, and this is how she looked parked in front of our home on March 2, 2008. We have now been her custodians for 16 years.  She has been our home on wheels for 13 years now.

Now, back to regularly scheduled programming.  We had 4 RZR rentals Saturday....one 2 day rental, two 4 hour rentals, and one 2 hour rental. Currently we only have 5 RZRs of the original 12 which we can rent now.  Two of the original twelve are on the 'disabled list', one was recently declared a total loss, and five are being 'prepped' for return.  We are definitely at the end of the winter rental season here at GNHS!

By 11 am all the rental customers had departed for their adventures, and we settled into 'busy' work.  I remember Hunter commenting that the guys (four elderly gentlemen) who had the two 4 hour rentals might be an issue.  Sometimes you have to trust your gut, right?  Around 1:15 pm we got the call....one of the 4 hour RZR rentals had a broken steering arm (controls the steering).  We checked their location which was very near Syphon 22 (about 2.5 miles out).  With a broken steering arm we would need to trailer it to bring it back so Hunter and I retrieved the company van, and trailer and began the drive out to Syphon 22.  In a RZR you can cover that distance in 10 minutes, but in a 15 passenger van pulling a flat bed trailer it is a 30 minute 'E' ticket ride.

We arrived at Syphon 22 around 2:15 pm and parked the van.  It is too sandy to drive the van to where the broken RZR was, so we called the customer and asked them to come pick us up in the still running 2nd RZR.  They were less than 1/8th mile down the sandy wash, so they were there in 1 minute, or 2.  Once we had a handle on how we were going to get the RZR back to the trailer we let the 4 guys leave in the other RZR to continue their adventure.  Essentially, I walked along side the broken RZR keeping the right front tire rolling in a straight line, which is a little difficult considering how uneven the terrain is, while Hunter drove.  It took us about 15 minutes to get her back to the trailer, and we were on our way back to the COA office arriving there right at 3 pm.  So, beginning to end, it took us less than 2 hours to retrieve the broken RZR......

Syphon 22

The broken RZR is on the trailer, and we are on our way back to the COA office

.....it appears the driver hit something in the road, at a high rate of speed, causing the right front shock to completely compress, with the tire hitting high up on the wheel well.....

Broken steering arm

Where the tire hit the wheel well

....this happened to another of our RZRs about 2.5 months ago, and the cause was the same.  That driver also hit something at a high rate of speed causing the right front shock to bottom out, thus shearing the steering arm where it connects to the right front wheel assembly.  Fortunately, this is not an expensive fix...about $650, plus labor, and one lost rental day, so around $1300.

On our drive back to the COA office it began to rain (didn't see that coming), and continued for almost 3 hours.  By 3:30 pm our all day rental had returned, so we were done for the day by 4 pm, and thankfully so, as it began raining even harder after 4 pm.

Thanks for stopping by!