Trip: Day Two

This was the day where things started to change. The plan was to end up in Rocky Mountain National Park by midafternoon and leisurely set up for a three night stay, start hauling out the cameras, and have what is my idea of a fun vacation.

You know what they say about the best laid plans. I'm neither a mouse nor a man, but the saying dies have its merit. Our trip was about to try turning into An Adventure. (And not for the last time!)

We were on the freeway about 9 miles out of and approaching Ogalalla, mostly relaxed, looking at nothing in particular, Paul driving, when...

WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP!

The relaxed part of the trip disappeared instantly. Paul pulled over to the shoulder - luckily nobody was close behind us - and stopped to see what had happened. He quickly reported that one of our rear tires was losing its tread. The good news was that it was the inner tire on a two-wheel rear side of the axle. We could continue to drive on it, slowly. The bad news was that it was the inner tire, and we weren't sure we could, much less wanted to try to fix it, especially on the freeway. Consensus was to proceed slowly. Ogalalla should be a big enough town that we could get it fixed, right? So we picked up speed and WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP...silence. There was a chunk of tread on the road behind us, rapidly dwindling in the rear view mirror. We relaxed a bit, then WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP (need I repeat all 45 times?) and again silence. Another piece of tread retreating in the distance. Again relaxing, and yet again WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP ( you get the picture). A third and final piece (I won't keep you in suspense) dwindles behind us, and we continue into town. The first thing we see is a truck stop with service bays, so we maneuver over to it and ask The Question: Can they fix it (quickly)?

I'll give them credit: they didn't quite laugh us out of the place. They did, however, put us firmly in our place as being so small as to be beneath their notice, or their capacity to have tools to do the job. Hey! it seemed like a very big truck to us! But I received very good instructions through town to the Firestone tire place, and backup instructions to the other place if we needed them (two blocks further down the street from Firestone).

This was now noon. Firestone told us quite firmly that they might get us in at 3:30, more likely at 4, as we hadn't had the foresight to make an appointment with them. Our need to make RMNP made no difference to them. If we liked, however, we could try the other place. They were the ones who sold B F Goodrich tires.

We liked. They told us they could likely get us in by 1:30 or 2, possibly even out on the road again by 2. Paul started taking off the hundred or so rope knots he'd used to tie the spare tire onto the top of the RV, and dropped the tire down for use.

Now this tire has its own story. The RV has the usual spare on its own wheel stored under the belly. But just a couple months earlier, the previous owner dropped by with an extra tire he'd bought years earlier and forgotten he'd stored in his garage. Spring cleaning brought it to light, and he thought we might find a use for it. We did.

The upset had put us off our feed until this point. Relieved, we loaded ourselves into the tire store waiting room (4 chairs in a corner, with a table stacked with magazines) along with crackers and EZ Cheeze, and proceeded to munch. We'd hardly finished when the guy came and told us he'd had a delay in another customer's tire delivery, and ours was finished! $20 please.

Whew!

Steve had hoped we could drive around Greeley for a bit, visiting his old house and stomping grounds, but agreed after the delay to forgo the pleasure. By the time we got near Greeley, he'd decided it wouldn't have been a pleasure after all. The town was way built up from what he remembered, unrecognizable for the most part, and had a completely alien feel to it. It just wasn't home.

We did, however, stop at the memorial partway up Big Thompson Canyon to honor the officers who lost their lives in 1976 warning the residents of the dam failure up in the park and the impending flood through the canyon. Many lives were saved that day, although many were also lost. Partly the stop was to start acclimating us by walking around to the high elevations we would be experiencing for the next few days. I've found that walking when one reaches 7000 feet does help give the body a nudge toward adaptation. Maria had never been in altitude so we didn't know for sure that she would be able to take it. (She was fine.)

It was late afternoon when we finally checked into the campground (Morraine) and got our promised handicap site (sticker displayed) right next to the toilet building. Beautiful distance views in three directions, including snow covered peaks, pines everywhere, room for the tent right behind the RV and a picnic table and fire ring a step lower behind that, wide gently-sloped ramps connecting everything. Least chipmunks, golden mantled ground squirrels, and some blonde/grey rodents were all over the place. We, of course, were properly attentive to the rules not to feed them. But cameras came out.

When the campfire was lit, we roasted hot dogs, corn on the cob, and had s'mores for dessert. My corn was the least roasted ear, and I couldn't finish it, so I threw it in the fire to burn up. Or so I thought. It was found the next morning, dragged out of the fire pit, several more kernels chewed off that I'd managed to eat. Next to it was also a half horse chestnut left by previous campers. Both got tossed back in for next night's fire. (We did succeed in burning the corn, but the horse chestnut kept reappearing from out of the fire pit every morning.)

This was a nonelectric site, so when dark came, we retired to bed. For some reason, the internal lights in the RV failed to work, in spite of the new internal battery I'd bought just before we set out. No biggie, we'd gained an hour, had significant stress, and were tired.