If you guessed Boondoggle Day, you win!!!! We left for the river around 12:30, giving the day time to warm up. We'd traversed 2 miles of the mountain road when we became aware of a loud hissing noise. We pulled over, which in itself is dangerous since there are no shoulders and this is a one-lane road and we were hidden by curves, and discovered the newly installed spare tire was leaking like crazy. WTF???!!! I was worried that there was some kind of problem with the truck that was causing it to pop all the tires on that back passenger side. But…upon further inspection, Jeremiah realized he had mistakenly put the spare tire on backwards. Oopsidaisie! So the valve stem busted off and that was the leak. The good news was there was no mysterious issue with the truck. The bad news….we were stranded on the mountain road with a flat tire and no spare spare. Of course, we had no reception to call for help, and even if we did get to a place with reception, we were concerned that no one would be open since it's Easter.
After some discussion, it was decided that Jeremiah and I would ride the scooter to the main road and try to call USAA. (I have roadside assistance coverage. One of the best deals in town!) I was terrified to ride the scooter. When we purchased it, Missy and I had an agreement that she would be the scooter person. I don't feel safe riding on it, and it was very scary riding on the windy, dirt, one-lane mountain road for 5 miles. To be fair, Jeremiah is a competent driver, and as much as possible he drove slowly in consideration of me. When we got to the main road, Jeremiah was able to get reception and we called USAA. We tried requesting that they send someone who could fix the tire, but they said that wasn't part of the service. So we would have to get a tow truck and be towed to a place with tire service. Nice thinking USAA….instead of paying $30 for a repair, you're going to pay $200 for a tow. Whatever. It was tough to keep constant cell service (walking around, waving the phone in all directions), so we decided to scootie the 3 miles to the service station/convenience store/tubing rental place that we'd passed the other day. I had seen it had a sign saying open 365, so I hoped that meant even Easter. And they were open! Jeremiah filled the scootie from the old fashioned pump (you had to come in and tell the lady how much you pumped). I love the gas economy of the scooter. 60 miles/gallon.
Jeremiah still had spotty reception, so he drove off to find a better spot. I stayed at the store. Turns out, the tow company had already tried calling to see if we had a dually, but since Jeremiah didn't get the call, the tow driver had to go back to his shop and get the bigger flatbed just in case. (For those of you who are interested, we don't have a dually). We had ourselves another 20-30 minute wait. We drove back to the top of the mountain road to wait for the tow truck. The hope was that the driver would let me ride with him down the mountain so that I wouldn't have to ride the scootie again. The tow turned up, and the driver was a southern sweetheart, 23 years old. Such a nice guy. He of course agreed to let me ride with him. Now, the trouble I had was that his southern accent was VERY strong. With the windows open and the loud truck, I couldn't understand most of what he was saying. But luckily he was more of a talker then a question-asker, so I got away with some well-timed nods. We arrived at the pickup, but there was no way for the 30 ft tow truck to get turned around the other way. Missy got in the tow truck (she had been waiting with the pickup for the 3 hours. She got to listen to an audio book the whole time) and we drove the 2 miles to the campground. There we had a chance to talk to the driver better. I guess USAA hadn't been clear on what we needed. They just told him to take us to the nearest town. He said he didn't think there'd be anything open. He told us he had a "tire guy", who he got all his tires from. But this guy wouldn't be open until the next morning. We finally decided that Jeremiah would go with the tow driver into town to see if anything was open. If not, they'd park the truck at the tire guy's place and Jeremiah would scootie back to camp and return in the morning. I was impressed at how nice the driver was. Plus, most of the people who passed the pulled over truck or saw Jeremiah and I waiting with the scootie pulled over to offer help. They give Minnesota Nice a run for its money. Thanks people of Reliance, TN!
Missy and I waited anxiously for Jeremiah to return. Finally, around 7 pm, he pulled up….in the truck! Turns out that there was nothing open, but the tow driver called his tire guy. The guy agreed to go to the shop and open up to help us! How awesome is that? So we got a new valve for the spare, and we bought a new tire for the truck. (Well, it was a used tire). We kept the bad tire in case we can get a refund since it should be under warranty.
So, to sum up, we did not have an awesome day on the river (which suuuuuucks, since this is a weekend dam release only, and we don't have a lead on any other rivers running that we can do during the week). However, even though it was bad luck to have these tire problems, we feel lucky that we got the problem solved with no complications. Here's hoping that this is the last of our bad luck.
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