The journey back from MTTS 2016 has not been as smooth as the actual MTTS event for us. Apologies for the delay in posting the last couple of days of the actual event – Christian was wiped but he should have the post uploaded soon!
In the meantime, check out a note I sent to my family about what took place on Monday as we were trying to go visit them in Texas on the way home…
Today proved to be an interesting challenge on our journey back home… It started off great as we drove along the musical road on Route 66 and then headed towards Texas. As we were approaching the Texas border in Clovis, New Mexico, we ran over a chunk of concrete that was being tossed around on the not-so-well maintained Clovis roads. The impact ended up bending my 2 passenger side rims which resulted in both tires losing air pressure. Luckily there was no damage to the actual car other than the wheels/tires and thankfully there was a Day’s Inn across the street that I was able to pull into and set up a make shift triage pit stall for Clark.
The rear tire lost all air pressure in a matter of minutes but the front tire was able to keep about 15 pounds of pressure. With only 1 spare, my goal was to put my spare up front and move the less damaged wheel to the rear. Sounds easy right? Well one of the bolts on the rear wheel appeared damaged somehow which made it almost impossible to remove. After an hour of messing with it, I decided to call MINI Roadside assistance for a tow to the nearest Discount Tire. Only issue is that the tow would have to wait until 8am the next morning since Discount Tire was about to close. No problem – we were at a hotel right? LoL
Anyways, the tow was scheduled but then something amazing happened. I asked a hotel guest who was standing outside for assistance to see if he had any ideas on trying to get the lug loose in its current condition. He gave it a shot and quickly came to the same conclusion I made – that lug was messed up lol. He then told me he is staying with a friend who is a mechanic and has his tools!!! BOOM!!! His buddy George came out with some real tools (I was using the crappy lug wrench that came with the car jack Kit). After quite a bit of effort on his part, he finally was able to get the lug loose and I had 40 minutes to get to Discount Tire. So I put the less damaged wheel on the rear and filled it up as much as I could with my portable air compressor. We arrived at Discount Tire with about 20 minutes to spare and they worked on putting a new wheel on the rear and swapping one of the good tires to it.
We then decided to drive as far as Lubbock, Texas for the night (we are on our way to visit my parents in Round Rock, TX). When we got to our hotel (Staybridge Suites) we were given a room right away. This is where things get funny… We walk into our room only to find some cowboy boots on the counter and a real cowboy in bed watching TV!!! He looked at us with a puzzled face and yelled a few obscenities lol. We quickly left the room and went to report the situation to the front desk and had them assign us a different room!! Wow – what a way to top off an already weird day!!
Anyway…. We are ok and that’s what matters. Our travel plans were delayed a day, but we sure made some memories lol.
