Deflated Plans

Wednesday morning dawned and again we were off early in the morning. This time we were out the door by 7 a.m., sneaking out before Uncle Ted and Aunt Bernie even woke for the day. We were headed to Tucson and keen on again making the most of our day down south. We made the early start to give us time to do some hiking before we met up with Katie's Aunt and Uncle

for an early dinner. After another 3 hour drive through some morning traffic we pulled into Saguaro National Park's west side on the border of Tucson. The Saguaro National Park is divided into two sides, an east and a west, that straddle the city of Tucson. We had heard that the west side

of the park had more to offer in terms of hiking and scenery and thus we decided to investigate this side first. We drove through the park, approaching from a remote entrance that lead us down a bumpy dirt road in order to reach the visitor center. We learned later that this dirt road was part of a scenic loop from which most of the hiking trails were accessed. At the visitor center we did the same old song and dance with the rangers and the informational video, then headed back in the direction of the scenic loop to do our hiking for the day. Along the way

we passed a sign for an interpretive nature trail and we just couldn't resist; quickly pulling off to do the hike. It took us about 45 minutes to do the 1 mile trail because of all the reading and picture taking that accompanied this trail but by the time we got back to the car we were ready to do some real hiking in the back country. Unfortunately, this plan was not in the cards for us today. As we

approached CJ Katie noticed the tragic flaw in our plan to drive to the next trailhead; our rear passenger tire was completely flat. All in all we couldn't complain. Though CJ has sprung a few leaks, jammed a few doors, and broken a few hinges, this was the first debilitating injury that she has sustained throughout the entire 30,000 miles of road she had tread thus far. We have been on some pretty nasty road over these past few months, and one flat tire near the end of our journey is nothing to complain about. Still, at the time I felt like complaining a whole bunch. I alluded to a jammed door just a moment ago and it is this jammed door which was the basis of our grief. The rear hatch has been jammed for weeks, all the way back to our first visit with Steve in Sacramento. We loaded some of his stuff through the back hatch, then were never able to get it open again. It was no big deal to us then and would be no big deal to us now, or so we thought. After I climbed in the back of CJ and pulled out the jack, the tragedy of the situation finally dawned on me. In order to lower the spare tire, we needed to open the rear hatch, which of course, is currently jammed. Unable now to fix the flat because of our lack of access to the spare, we called AAA. They informed us of the unfortunate rule that tow trucks could not bring spare tires to us. Instead they sent a tow truck, only informed them that I had a flat tire, and hoped for the best. The tow truck arrived about a half hour after we had discovered the flat; much faster than we had anticipated it would be given our remote location. The guy began to jack up the car and was about to remove the flat when we told him about our spare problem. After laughing about how AAA had conveniently forgotten to mention that bit of information over the phone, we got to work. First, we tried prying the rear hatch open with his screwdrivers and crowbars, but soon discovered that we were only bending the sheet metal and not reaching the latch at all. Taking a different approach, the service guy went under the van and tried to dislodge the spare by deflating it,

then trying to pry it off its cable. After a few minutes of struggling he noticed the bar that connects to the rear hatch, called for some channel locks and began to lower the tire by hand, successfully freeing the spare. Within minutes he had the spare on, our flat tire loaded up in the van and we were driving into town to get the tire patched. We went to Goodyear Tire who would not patch the tire because its thread was so low, so I was forced to by a brand

new one. Now I have excellent tread on one tire and the tread of an used Indy race-car on the other 3. All I can envision while I am buying this thing is CJ pirouetting on her good foot while trying to drive straight down some ice laden road... Katie's Aunt and Uncle met us at Goodyear right as they were giving CJ the "all clear" to get back on the road. They treated us to an excellent meal at Macaroni Grill then we headed back to Surprise where we met up with Ish again at one of her favorite dive bars, staying late into the night to watch open mic night featuring some of her friends. Thursday was to be our day actually spent in the city of Pheonix.