Park Rangers Mark and Joe save the day!

Last night when we were enjoying afternoon tea, I noticed the right front tire of Kathleen's truck was low...no huge surprise, its had a slow leak and we've been trying to get it fixed for a couple of days.
"Tire's low," I said.
"Yeah, we need to deal with that tomorrow," she said.

'Tomorrow' was a rest day, and we were near enough to a town..on a Monday, so we could likely deal with that tire, and the rear right slow leaker tire as well.
Back to tea and cookies...and cracker jacks.

Later that evening....

"Oh Nikki...guess what?" She says, in her British accent."
"Yes, what is it?" I answer, also Britishly.
"Tire's flat."
"Oh my," I say..."so it is."

"Well," I say, "did you guys ever get that spare filled up with air?"
She looks at me...
"Well, we did...kind of?"

I climb under the truck to check it out.

"Oh Kathleen," I say, from my spot underneath the truck..."Spares gone."
"What!"
"Yep, gone."

You know, back at Canyon de Chelly P.J. sauntered by the back of the truck and nonchalantly let me know that the spare was dangling from underneath the truck. So it was. We got it back into place and Kathleen and Larry filled the spare up so it would wedge better. Somehow the bracket that holds it in place disappeared, hence, the dangling tire scenario; we thought we had taken care of it.

And apparently, somewhere between here and there, it just fell off.

So, there we were. Flat. No spare. 12 miles from town.

The following morning we got up, P.J. came and helped us take the spare off and we started the process of finding ride into town. Couldn't take the blue van...Wounded was sleeping in it (as opposed to under the bridge); Couldn't take the little blue truck 'cause Henry was sleeping and we couldn't ask him for it. Goody wouldn't take us. Tony and Holly were already gone. Couldn't take the school bus. The R.V. wasn't available because we would've had to wait for everyone to get their shit together for laundry..and on and on and on.

So, Kathleen just said."Fine, I'm walking it into town."

And she grabs it and after we try to carry this thing, we just start rolling it....uphill.
P.J.'s following behind us, going, "wait..you guys..wait..would you wait?"

Nah...we were done waiting.

We get it up to the ranger station and she goes inside to ask the guys for a ride into town. They legally couldn't drive us in..but they did have this cool maintenance shop which the head ranger directed Mark and Joe towards to help us out.

And help us they did. God they were great.



Mark, a banker for 25 years who just started his ranger career 2 months ago was sweet as could be; and Joe, former police officer, also new on the job...knew all there was to know about fixing flat tires. So they got the tire on the thingamajig; flattened it, patched it, aired it up and we were on our way.



It was really very cool.



We made them a plate of biscotti, peanut butter cups, ginger snaps and truffles. They let us know that we should drive up and put air in that right rear tire before we headed out. Which we did...cruised into town, got a new tire...and we'll be looking to get a spare when we reach Amarillo on Wednesday.

Good times...good times.