Today after homeschool we decided to head into Apache Junction by way of the 8 mile off-road FS10 route that I biked a few days ago.  The “road” is really bad in spots, and coming down a steep hill the washed out trench in the middle of the road was a bit too wide and the SUV slipped in to the trench on the passenger side, crushing the running board up into the body of the SUV.

Oops:

Looking back up the hill:

Truth be told, I’ve always hated the running boards because they reduce ground clearance, so I wasn’t sad to discover that the front of the running board had been sheared off its mount.  I got out some tools and finished the job:

Yup, this one’s done:

Post surgery, the SUV has a lot more clearance:

Not wanting to litter, we packed out the running board.  I’ll remove the other one tomorrow before we leave Bulldog OHV:

Enjoy your last day on the SUV, driver’s side running board, you’ll be joining your starboard friend tomorrow:

We pulled off FS10 to check out an old mine, which now has a modern water gauging station installed:

It took us about 90 minutes to cross those 8 miles to Apache Junction, just a bit slower than by bike.  That’s how bad the road was.  We did food shopping and laundry, and stopped at Grandpa Glenn’s to say hello to him and Edna.  We filled up our 45 gallon water bag for the trip back to the RV, as the RV is almost out of fresh water:

Once we returned to the RV, I drained the water bag into the RV’s fresh water tank via garden hose.  Trish tried out a wall-mounted ball run we recently received:

We will be heading out tomorrow morning for our drive to the Scottsdale community for Shabbos.