Friday, August 29, 2008

Weird Day

Okay, we had a long convoy today. We went up a mountain to see a couple of antennas we pay for. We were in armored vehicles and other armored vehicles have gone up there before, but......

Up went fine. We did our 3 point turn to come down the mountain and suddenly we couldn't turn right. Took a look under the Toyota Land Cruiser and the right wheel tire rod was bent, bent a WHOLE lot.

We called for help (we were just above a special forces camp) and they sent a mechanic. He took the hydraulics loose from the tire rod. Then he and I (yay! I got to help) used the jack to try and straighten the tire rod. It sorta worked.

Then someone had to drive the damn thing down the mountain. Up was pretty challenging (I drove up). I decided since my driving may have been a contributing factor on the way up, I should drive it down. Earl took up shotgun as a 2nd set of eyes.

The trip down was pretty skeery. We could only get about 45 degrees of right turn. That made the trip down a "how close to the left of the road (where the mountain ends and "our friend gravity" takes over) we could safey get. Apparently, we were pretty close to the left because (Kerri, be sure to pass this along to your Dad) a Marine Major told me I had "balls of steel" to drive that vehicle that close to the edge of a mountain. I don't know about "balls of steel". That whole experience was pretty much out of body for me, see turn, take turn, don't fall off mountain.

Good times.

Around the madness, we got to go to the "Queens Palace" and get some great pix. I also have some lovely pix from the top of that mountain. You'll see a few of the pix of the outside and the inside of the Queens Palace and some outside fo the King's Palace (buiilt in 49, burnt sometime in the 60's -- accident)










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