Hey there, as you may have noticed… I haven’t posted much.
Well, it has been cold and snowy… and we really haven’t been up to much.
Our apartment is cleaner than it has been, perhaps ever! I have played a fair amount of Warcraft although nothing like I used to.
I have been meaning to post the other half of our day outdoors, I just didn’t want to bring the mood down.
Given the lack of topics to write about… I guess that is my next post!
After an enjoyable time doing various outdoor winter activities, Heather and I walked back to the car. The abundance of people attending the event had overwhelmed the small parking lot at the lodge, so we were partially off the road a few hundred yards down the way. Given that setting, I offered to pull the car out, so Heather wouldn’t have to climb through several feet of snow in the ditch.
When she got into the car, she said “the front tire looked kind of low when you were pulling out.” I took a quick peek at it: Flat, not kind of flat… FLAT.
Ok so, pull off the road so other people can get around us at least… and hmmm…. Well when we were waiting to get our cross country ski boots, I was looking around the shed we were in. It wasn’t really a shed, it was the park maintenance building. I remembered seeing lines for compressed air running down a few beams throughout the room. I hadn’t seen a portable air tank, but figured it was worth a shot.
Walked back to the shop, asked the DRN person there if they had an air tank, and if I could barrow it. She didn’t normally work at the park hosting the event, and had no idea what tools they had on hand. She did say if I could find what I needed it I could barrow it! After a little looking I found the air tank, and ancillary items needed to re-inflate a flat tire.
Walked back to the car, filled the tire. I figured if it was holding pressure by the time we drove the tank back to the shop we might be able to at least make the five miles back to the small town we passed on the way in, before making some phone calls.
At the shop, I returned the air tank, and helped the staff person load some ski equipment into her truck. I must have been a little flustered, because without realizing it, I left my brand-new mittens laying in the shop.
We pulled into a parking lot in Bondurant, and I checked the pressure in the front tire again. Things were looking good, it hadn’t lost any pressure so far! I figured we could probably make it the remaining 20 minutes home before it started to loose much more, and didn’t really relish the idea of finishing off a long day by sitting in a cold car waiting for a tow truck on Sunday evening.
Pulled off one more time, about half way home to take another look, and we were down 2-3lbs, but still above normal operating pressure (I had over-filled the tire about 8lbs). I decided we should push the rest of the way home. I should say that, while ultimately supportive Heather had some reservations about this whole plan, but I don’t think she wanted to sit a few hours in the car any more than I did 🙂
once home, we realized we probably only had a few more hours before the tire was un-drive-ably low again, so we headed back out onto the road, with two vehicles this time, bound for our mechanics lot. The trip there was uneventful, but once there it’s hard to feel 100% comfortable dropping your key, and a note through the drop-slot and walking away. We didn’t have much of a choice though, so that’s what we did.
Once home I checked, and re-checked for my mittens, and well… it was kind of demoralizing. I really considered myself to be more responsible than to loose my stuff like that. I even bought the really nice stuff, because I “knew” I could take care of it for a long time. At this point, Heather jumped in and started making phone calls. It wasn’t a good time of the day or week to catch anyone, but she left messages at a few different DNR offices. She then continued to call over the next few days, until she located the mittens, and then used her lunch break to drive out to an office on the northern extremes of Des Moines to pick them up!
During that same time, our mechanic was able to extract a nail from the front tire of the car, leaving us as good as new!
All in all, it wasn’t the greatest end to what started out as a really fun day… but things worked out in the end.
-Jordan
Nelsons 