Thursday Grab Bag: Dysfunctional Trip

I showed up late for work today because of a brown bag and a bottle, and I didn't take a drink.

It was one of those days where going to the bathroom was out of the question.

I was celebrating my summit of Mount Princeton yesterday ­-- with a warm water ­-- when the sound of shattering glass rushed at me through my open driver's side window.

I'd slammed into a bottle encased in a paper bag driving down Highway 285 near Saguache, Colo. The collision warped the rim of my front left tire, which immediately shut it down.

OK, no problem, I'm 175 miles from Aztec but I'll take my chances with my doughnut. I jacked up the car after taking off the wheel cap and realized that the previous owner of my 2003 Honda Accord hadn't left me a lug nut wrench.

Much thanks to Mark Werts with the Saguache County Sheriff's office --­ and the sheriff himself ­ who brought me a four-way wrench that allowed me to get my spare tire in place.

Then my car wouldn't start ­-- apparently I left my emergency blinkers on too long and ran down the battery. At this point Mr. Werts tells me that the place I've pulled my car over --­ I pulled it well into the grass --­ sits beneath Rattlesnake Hill.

"Looks like they're not out today," he said.

"Maybe they're up further on the hill?"

"No, they're usually right where you¹re standing," he deadpanned, pointing at the foot-long grass by my feet.

I made it close to Del Norte when my back left tire blew out. Apparently I ran over some glass with that one and it took longer to leak. My cell phone battery was on life support at this point.

Through a series of phone calls where I turned off my phone for 15 minutes at a time, and thanks to help from my GPS, I contacted as many tire places in Del Norte and surrounding areas as possible searching for a solution.

Needless to say my after-market rims and oversized tires precluded a quick or obvious fix, and even getting another spare the right size was futile.

After what must've been 150 minutes sitting at the intersection of Highway 112 and County Road 23, I got towed into Alamosa by Ace Towing --­ the tire companies suggested Chaparral Tire was the only place that might be able to help.

Meanwhile, my phone is completely dead --­ I later got enough juice out of it to dash out two text messages ­-- and I¹m supposed to be at the San Juan Open at 7 a.m. (This happened yesterday --­ Wednesday.)

I get a hotel as none of the rental car places are open by this point. I'm a hurry to walk about a mile to the Safeway ­-- if I don't get contact solution, I'll be as good as blind and won't be able to drive --­ and it's nearing the closing hour.

My legs burn --­ I just completed a 15-mile hike with over a mile of vertical elevation gain --­ and just as I neared Safeway, two Mormons on bicycles decided I looked like a good candidate to have a long discussion about theology. There's nothing wrong with that type of discussion. But I'm not about to get stuck in a hotel room with no car, no cell phone and blind, over three hours from home.

On the way back to my hotel I see a blue Honda Accord parked next to the curb. With stock tires. As if somebody was trying to rub in my bad luck.

Hotel room #114 of the east building didn¹t have a clock. The phone wouldn't dial a number with a different area code, so I had to get lucky and text the people I needed to talk to and have them call my hotel phone. After this my cell phone wouldn't turn on. I talked to sports editor Darren Vaughan at what I'd guess was midnight ­-- no way to know time --­ to come up with some sort of plan, and went to sleep for the first time since 10 a.m. Tuesday morning. (I'd left for the hike at 11 p.m. Tuesday night.)

For $66.95, the room at the Alamosa Lamplighter Motel did offer a free breakfast ticket, good for two eggs, hash browns, toast, jelly, coffee and a choice of ham/bacon/sausage. Unfortunately I was up before 7 a.m, shuttling the 10-block trip to the tire shop and back several times, trying to work out an immediate solution.

I'm sure the tire people appreciated my stench ­ the only clothes I had with me were the ones I spent eight hours hiking with and then wore to soak in the Mount Princeton Resort Hot Springs. Perhaps that's why they expeditiously found two 15-inch tires from a '92 Toyota Camry at a nearby junkyard, switched both my working tires to the rear axel and sent me on my way.

But my battery wouldn¹t start again, and this time it took a few cranks with the jumper cable attached. In the middle of the drive home, I noticed I was low on gas over a mountain pass. I checked the GPS ­-- the nearest gas station was nearly 30 miles behind me. I backtracked, filled up, and promptly drove into several squalls of torrential rain. And then, finally, a caravan of oversized loads driving 25 mph on Highway 64 toward Bloomfield.

I showered and drove straight to work when I got home.

And for those of you familiar with the Dirty South or at least accustomed to hip-hop vernacular, I¹m afraid my car will no longer have feet. That is to say, I'm going to have to ditch the after-market tires and rims.

The climb was awesome ­ I'll post a link to my trip report soon for those interested --­ but with the six hours between finishing up tonight and when I'll be up to leave for tomorrow's San Juan Open, I won't be able to write up my usual Thursday grab bag.

I apologize and hope you will understand my predicament. It's good to be home.

Stay true and keep pounding,
Christopher