On to Dryden.
At this point.. we had two way to make it dryden. one was to keep going south on Pandale road to Langtry 24 miles and refuel and head to the ranch 45 miles
or
run another 53 miles west on Fielder draw road south on 349 to dryden then we'd have to go 20 Miles up to Sanderson for gas then back 20 miles to the ranch.
it was 2:30 pm so we thought we could get some more dirt miles in so we choose the longer route with more dirt riding.
I had two bars on my fuel gauge and thought I'd be good for 80 miles or so..
but Fielder Draw rd is so much fun.. I might Have gassed it a little too much. LOL.. I should have know when I gassed it off the second cattle guard and launched 100 ft down the trail and totally bottomed out the s-10. Super Tenere owners know that's not a smart thing as we all know how vulnerable the oil pan is to damage, even with my ADC skid plate. a quick inspection and no issues so it was motor on.
this area had gotten some really good rain and some of the low parts of the road had standing mud puddles.. one almost caught us all off guard. it was on a the bottom of a fast right hander with bad vision. didn't see it until we were right upon it.. Dao was the only one to go down.. not that he blew through the mud. more that he tried to go around the puddle with street tires and his front tire washed out.
we all had a laugh and helped Dao get out of the muck.. Dao.. you owe me a boot wash..LOL.
one thing with the rain.. I have never seen this part of texas so green and lush..
No other issues on the road except for watching a few baby heads on the road.. but no one popped a tire.. in fact.. not one flat the whole trip by anyone..
when we reached the end of the dirt I looked down and noticed my fuel light was blinking and said I have gone 30 miles on E.. OH Krap.. I'm going to run out of gas before we hit Langtry.. Luckly I filled up two of my MSR bottles.
We took 349 south to Dryden and headed west on hwy 90 and within a mile the s-10 sputterd out of gas.. Known fact.. my s-10 is good for 48 miles past e until it runs out..
Pulled out the MSR bottle and dump in the fuel and headed off again for another 9 miles and she ran out again. I had one more bottle full of fuel and everyone else was tight on gas I had 12 miles to go to hit the gas station.. as I poured the fuel in a big gust of west texas wind blew half of the gas away from my filler. that's not good.. Well.. I'll make it or start pushing.. I took it easy on the throttle and made it into town. filled up with 5.8 gallons.. needless to say I was on fumes..
we gathered the troops and head back to Dryden and onto the Birdsong Outpost. think we got in around 7:30 PM