RV-Junke's: 2012 West Coast Adventure, Day 27

Day 27 July 19th, 2012:

Good morning / evening from Tucson, Arizona…not where we intended on being, but The Man upstairs obviously wanted us here!

What was supposed to be un-eventful day of driving and making one stop at Saguaro National Park, turned out to be a day of Blessings beyond words!

1st, I need to frame the day….In March of this year, less than 6,500 miles ago, I had 6 of the 8 tires replaced, two front, and 4 drive (tag tires were new from last year), six shocks, and a 6 wheel laser alignment. Since then I have been maniacal about checking the wear, the tire pressure and temperatures…In addition, just 10 days ago we spent 2 days getting our windshield replaced for the 2nd time in 2 years, which was a 2 day project and there are only 3 places in the country that do this, Oregon, Arizona, and Florida…so it’s not easy to get fixed…

So trucking along Route 8, and enjoying the absolute BARRON dessert, wow is it baron…Patty finds a Air Museum and “Bone” yard of retired military aircraft which is at the same exit for the National Park. We all decided to see what it looks like then drive up to the NP. As we are about to exit, BAM, a rock blasts the NEW windshield and I now have a new chip and 4” spider…needless to say, many adjectives flew from my mouth, and literally was “REALLY!”…my mind went into do we try and repair to get us to NJ, and then I will drive to Florida later, or do we turn up to Phoenix and have replaced again…during, we passed the air museum and bone yard, because I was pretty pissed, so we just headed to the NP. Patty started making calls to the windshield company to get options, while Michael was trying to enjoy the NP, while I was still stewing, and Nicholas was just quiet. About 3 miles into the park, Patty and I have developed a plan, that we would drive East as far as we could today and then try and get repaired to get us to NJ…literally as we decide this and make the arrangements, Michael spots a place to get out and look at the very large cactus…Usually when I stop I have the wheels straight, but for some un-known reason I had them turned to the right when we stopped. As Michael and I stepped out something caught my eye in the tire….METAL, not a piece of metal, but the metal braiding under all the rubber…My passenger side front tire was completely worn through on the inside to the metal. This shocked me, but made me look at the other side which was 100% worn with metal showing as well. At this point, I popped, and really had about all I could take…We are in the middle of a NP, with roads no wider than 10’ (I am 8’6”…so less than 8” of clearance on each side), very windy and hilly roads, and I have two tires that are about to BLOW in 110 degrees of heat…not a good scenario. All of a sudden the windshield was became a little issue.

As God must have been watching over us, because if we had stayed on the highway we would have blown a tire…within 2 calls we had a place 8 miles away that could help. We pulled into Purcell tire, and the Service Manager Ernie (awesome guy) looked at the tires, and said you can’t drive this anymore…not even 1 more mile…he stated based on his 28 years of tires, less than 100 miles and a blow out is guaranteed…again God was on our backs, Ernie didn’t have any tires, but made two calls and found the LAST 2 in Tucson (these are very hard tires to find)…within 30 minutes of tires arriving we were on our way to layover at a local campground, because we had yet a bigger issue, the front end alignment which wore the tires literally in a few days…

Again, a call to my VERY dear friend John Davis in Oregon, and he had me an appointment at Premier RV, and a VIP pass with the owner Eric. Patty, made a call to the windshield company, and procured an appointment for 8:00am., at the campsite…so our next day had a lot of promise…needless to say, I was exhausted and passed out thus thus no blog or photos, while Patty, Michael and Nicholas went swimming because I really was in no mood for anything, so it was safer for all to be away from me…

In the end and looking back, this is one of MANY times in which it was meant to be for us to take pause where we were, enjoy the surroundings and stop rushing to get home…Believe in what you want, but I believe God was watching over us and ensured our safety yet again, by a few little nudges…when I don’t listen to the nudges, he gives me a punch. The windshield was a nudge, the tires were a punch…in which I heard loud and clear…

Easy to reflect 2 days later, but when you reflect it is clear, that this day albeit scary, was truly a BLESSED day!