Adventuring!

4.6.24

Well, it’s that anniversary again. Almost at the last minute I decided to drive to see the total eclipse from the balcony of my old music partner’s apartment in Austin Texas. Truly idiots have angels, and likely, angels need idiots to exist. I had packed out not-that-early on a Sunday morning, but the van battery was stone dead, would not jump, would not charge. AAA sent a guy with a battery that almost fit, he made it work and got me on the road. I tried filling my tires the day before, but there was one tire that wouldn’t cooperate. The inflater valve squealed in terror, but, idiot that I am, I decided to have it checked out “later”. Now I was actually walking distance from my tire guy over the holiday, and intended to drop in to have it checked then, but, well, here we are.

Crossing the CA/AZ border at Needles after a night at Mojave National Preserve I stopped into a place that said TIRES, and TIRE SALE, to check the pressure and get 2 gallons of $7/per gas, when Johnny approached and said my FRONT tire looked a little low . . . distracted, oops, I ended up filling my tank, and pulled up to the air hose. He proceeded to show me the indicators, and the rot, and said, these aren’t safe on the highway–he showed me the date on the one I was having issues with–2015. I ended up with a full set of fresh new tires. He also pointed out that my shocks were original (1983) equipment, and leaking, and down the road in Kingman I could have them replaced, and called the guy to see if they were in stock.

Well, it could seem to be a scam, but then, even I could see they were not what I wanted to be riding on, and worrying about. Honestly, road angels exist. Somehow my work truck always had up-to-date wheels, but my van guys only go so far.

I stopped for a scrumptious carnitas taco at what appeared to be a Subway/truck stop/gift store in Seligman, so it was well into afternoon when I was back on the road, driving through an ice storm and searching for a campground. I pulled into the lot at Petrified Forest and recognized clear signs of Boondocking, chose a spot with a view of trees, and tucked in for the night.

The next morning I woke to ice half-an-inch thick on my windshield, and remembered the ice scraper I somehow had the sense to acquire and squirrel away in the back of the van. I shivered and watched as mothers hugged and hustled their tiny children through the freezing wind onto a school bus idling nearby. I pulled out early, but the fog was so thick I had to pull over and wait until I could at least see the trucks rumbling by. I felt blessed, so at the New Mexico border I bought myself a vintage Navajo Sterling cuff as a birthday present, what the hell I had emergency cash, the emergency was averted, plus now I am a genius.

Through Albuquerque, and after a sweet boondocking rest stop near Santa Rosa, New Mexico I turned south and through backcountry Texas. One more stop at a spendy RV “resort” (the blue dot) where I plugged in my laptop and got some email, then off early on Thursday morning, arriving in Austin (the red pin) in time to join Grif on his flower delivery route. Not before getting rerouted, not for the first time, by an inane map app that sent me to a completely different address with almost no relation or reason to where I was destined, a 27 minute delay . . .