What a day. My pretty van is looking slightly more lived in tonight. I woke up this morning to a flat tire, so I'm driving on a donut
until I can get a replacement tomorrow. My spacious living is somewhat less spacious while I share it with the tire. Tomorrow morning this will disappear. At least it sure as hell better get taken care of tomorrow. I'd rather not have a tire in my living room for more than a night.While I've got the pictures up, notice the black cloth on the left side? You might be able to make out the wooden dowel running the width of van just behind the seats. That's my curtain, which is probably not as stealthy as I like to pretend it is.
I had to call AAA to put the donut on the van because I have no jack. Dad and I took it out of the back of the van last time I was down in San Diego. I don't remember what the logic behind this was. Probably went something like, "Might as well leave that here. What are the chances you'll get a flat?"
As it turned out just getting the donut out from underneath the van was enough of a pain in the butt that even if I had known where it was it would have taken forever to do it myself. Every time I get a flat tire it's with a new (to me) car and I have no idea where the spare is. But now I've seen it done and I feel confident I'll be able to do it myself. (Once I put the jack back in the trunk). Yay for increasing self-sufficiency!
My favorite part of the morning though was when a mother and her two small (maybe 2 and 3 years old) children were walking by and the older one wanted to know what was going on. She explained that the man was changing the tire because it was flat and you can't drive on tires when they're flat. The little boy watched in absolute fascination then turned to his mom and exclaimed "This is a very special day." I told his mom it was a very special day for me too, but that I was hoping it would stop being such a special day soon.
It ended up being a very busy day, but nothing else particularly special happened.
While in the photo posting mood let me get some pictures up from my trip to Santa Barbara. That was a very special couple days in the good way. I give you the best of the camera dump.
I was a big fan of the sunsets. 
On the way down I stopped in Malibu and got a campsite at my favorite campground. If you scroll down a few months you can read my description of the sound of the waves on the rocks of this beach. I took audio while I was there, of course, so once I've figured out how to put that up here, you'll get to actually hear it for yourselves.
Also, my ex-roommate's 18 year old cat, Misha, passed away this last week. He was a great cat, even if in his old age he confused my laundry basket with his litterbox. He will be missed.
4 comments:
Ben and I have had some, interesting, adventures with flat tires. Notably, somewhere outside Baton Rouge and at Circus Circus in Reno. I have decided that although I am sure that I could change a tire, I would prefer to not. Therefore, I will be calling someone else to change my tires whenever they get flat.
-Molly
I like knowing that I probably can even if I choose not to because of time, effort or frustration. What I don't like about this flat is that you only get 4 free service calls from AAA. I didn't use any last year, but I just renewed my membership and now less than a month after that, just before I take off on the road I've already used one of my 4.
Well, at least that experience of having a flat tire taught you how to change it yourself. Good thing you were able to see how they did it.
That's pretty optimistic. Your dad may have thought that your chances of having a flat are close to zero. But even if that's the case, remember that it's still not negligible. Have the car repair tools that you need with you all the time, especially since you're living in a car for a year.
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