roadside adventures

So. I was driving home from camping last month. On the way up our tire warning light had come on a couple times but every time we stopped to look at them & check air pressure, everything looked fine. It's an old van & after a while, you become a bit like Penny on TBBT & start ignoring car warning lights because the darned thing is frequently complaining about something, and you're like "Hey, I know you're old now and thought you'd get freedom 55 and get to retire but this culture of entitlement is what's wrong with this world so get back to work and start hauling. And quit asking for preventative health care & oil changes. You should be grateful you get fuel ..."

On the way back, again with the light & we stopped in Hedley, where the only gas station had a big sign saying "out of gas" & no air hose. We had to go to the Hedley Museum to use the bathrooms (which are very nice btw). We kicked the tires a few times & kept going.

And then about 10 minutes out of Hedley, kaboom. Actually it wasn't very loud & we were listening to an audio book & laughing quite hard (Three Men in a Boat) when suddenly things didn't seem quite right to me & I pulled over & yup, one of those tires was very, very flat.

That's the lovely Similkameen River beside us.

We had to unload almost everything from the van to get at the tools & the spare. So glad the dogs travelled in crates. We just pulled out the crates & placed them safely on the shoulder.

 

Gorgeous scenery but you can see the slope is not inconsiderable & if we had lost control, that would have been a bit of a drive down before we landed in the lovely cool water.

 

My mom was driving behind us.  She parked a bit behind us, hazard lights on. Fortunately we were a ways from the bend in the road so traffic had time to slow down & get around us (single road, double yellow line, cliff on the other side so not loads of room)

 

Here's the damage.  You can see, it wasn't just a simple flat.

As for the rest of the trip: there were 5 people (+ a visitor! My dad drove up & stayed in a hotel a few nights & visited with us during the day.), 3 dogs, 1 cat, 2 tents, 2 cars, reading, eating, swimming, paddling, lounging, sitting by the fire & just generally awesome relaxing. It was another great camping trip!