The Odds!

Based on all of the, what I have continuously referred to as, miraculous like support, events, people met and adventures we have experienced over the past eight months of traveling I am not at all surprised in the way things turned out Tuesday. Nor was I upset in the least when the circumstances presented themselves. I actually have come to look forward (in a strange way) to the situations of any given day. Not like I am calling them into existence mind you but, they happen regardless, just as they do in any one's life and I have lost or at least misplaced my desire and possibly my ability to be tossed about for very long if at all, by whatever presents itself on this journey. I would say that this is a good thing as I take a quick look back, and I don't have to look to deep, into my past, to see that I had a very different approach to managing life's obstacles before a couple of years ago. I participated in a powerful program back in 06 that set the stage, I guess you could say, for the mellow, the observation and appreciation of how life shows up. This trip has offered plenty of opportunity for practice of being with the "suchness of life" and tested my perseverance and desire to continue to be with it and thus rewarded me for the times when I am able to maintain my presence in the face of "what is". That has been the true gift for me of this entire experiment (the trip) and I am grateful as hell for having learned this practice and for the way life shows up now.

Now, I'm not a bookie, in fact I am not even sure of how to spell it, but if I were and someone were willing to take the bet against us having the success that we did in yesterday's little road adventure, based on our personal history of magic thru out this year, I would have certainly gone ahead and taken the bet. I don't know how to calculate odds, but if I were to do this in a very simple format, I would say that the odds of our success would have been, at least, 27,804,240 to 1. My formula for figuring these odds comes from the simple ancient theorem that, I believe Pythagoras developed, back in the day of creating such things. I simply followed those weighty pre-established rules and... multiplied the number of days in the year by 24 hours and then by 60 minutes and finally by the number of years I have been alive and came up with the total number of minutes in that time span and placed that against the number of times this type of experience has actually occurred in that time span. I would have given anyone the bet and been quite satisfied with the payoff.

We were running up highway 25 north in Fort Collins, CO when a nice young couple pulled up next to me in their cute little SUV (that by the way looks very small from way up in the captains perch of the RV) waving frantically. (I have done this particular move enough times to other people to know that they were trying to tell me something and that it wasn't just their way of wishing us a safe journey or welcome to Fort Collins). On their first attempt to communicate with me, upon noticing them, I reactively took my foot of the gas pedal to slow down to see if I can figure out what they want or are trying to tell me(this move saves me at least 2 gallons every time I do it so there is that little bonus too). Their speeding up to try to catch up with me joined with my reactive slowing down causes them to shoot by me by about 10 feet. As we attempt to choreograph our highway dance I place my foot gently back on the accelerator as they begin to slow down and finally we are aligned. They are now alternately looking at the road in front of them and rapidly glancing back at me and as they do they are moving their mouths in largely exaggerated fashion in attempt to pronounce the words they are wanting me to hear. They soon enough realize that I am not understanding them but the dumb questioning look on my face and simultaneously become aware that this form of communication would work alot better if they put their window down. She, in the passenger seat reaches for the power window button and as it reaches the open position they both start speaking at the same moment and once again as I try to hear each of them independently I don't get what they are saying, Finally, he gets really loud and yells, "The tire on your trailer just completely disintegrated."

I acknowledge that I understand and thank them for telling me (all of my communication with them, I realize, has been silent and in head motions and sign language form by facial expressions and eye movements) and immediately begin my maneuver to the breakdown lane on the right side of the highway. You know the one with the deeply engraved, perpendicular to the direction of travel, grooves that are designed to make you Instantly aware that you have drifted from you lane of travel as your tire makes contact. Well when you travel over them with an 18,000 lb. RV loaded to the gills at anything less than normal travel speed, they not only tell you that you are now in the break down lane they rattle your fillings loose and shake everything in the RV viciously. In a car you could probably get over far enough to move to the right of the grooves but in the RV your drivers side tire is basically running down the line of grooves until you gratefully and as quickly as possible come to a complete stop. Which I did.

I jump out of the driver seat and head to the side door on the passenger side of the RV to go back to see how bad the damage is to the tire and to what ever else has been affected by the tire disintegration, as previously described. As I am heading to the door, I look back to the rear of the RV and notice that Megan is laying on our bed with her knees up and that in the midst of all l of the commotion and slowing down, speeding up and eventually coming to a complete stop on the side of this major highway and I realize that through all that she has been in the same position and hasn't moved an inch. I have the thought that she has simultaneously also become accustomed to accept what is without panic or upset and in this situation specifically, without questioning what is going on or doing anything other than raising her head a few inches to see what I am doing and questioning me with her eyes as I move towards the side door. I tell her with a concerned voice that one of our tow dolly tires has blown as she raises herself to her elbows and looks concerned. Confident that she understand the possible weight of the situation I continue my exit from the RV.

I make my way down the side of the RV towards the rear to get to the tow dolly through the tall grass, litter and miscellaneous car parts that are strewn about the side of any major highway in America. By the way, if you have never walked along the edge of a highway, in the US, you should try it sometime. Not for long, for a minute there will tell you that this is not a great place to be. Not only is this a junk collectors paradise and THE place to go if you are ever on a scavenger hunt and need to find a few obscure items but it is also one of the noisiest, windiest and scary places to be or to work on a vehicle. A car rolling by you at 70 mph is all of that but when a semi or bus goes by you are literally moved by the wind as you try to hold your ground and brace yourself for the next one following behind and covering your ears from the constant loudness of diesel engines and wind. I have spent sometime on the sides of roads and have a great appreciation for my friend Dave , and others, who has worked on CT highways for 20 plus years. I don't envy them.

As I examine the tire or what used to be my tire, I recalled that just this morning I had looked at what was a brand new tire in February and noticed that it was chopped or what I would call scalloped on the outer and inner edges, like worn heavily, but still had plenty of rubber. I could not figure out why this was happening to this tire but knew that the one I had taken off to replace was in the same condition when I replaced it. Maybe there is something up with the tow dolly that causes them to wear like this or the tires for trailers are just sheer junk. I was concerned and wondered if I should replace it again but my second thought was (and probably because I am cheap and want to drag the last little bit out of everything), well the other one that was on there was worse and made it a couple of thousand miles so, I should be able to make it a while longer. And so I did, about 60 miles longer.

The great news was that only the tread material had shredded off. It was as if someone had taken a knife and sliced a line down the center of the tire all the way around it and the tread rubber peeled off in both directions toward the outer edges. The tire liner, what they attach the tread material too was still intact and full of air. That means that the neither the tow dolly and more importantly the car had not been damaged at all. Well, almost at all. there was a small lack ring that had gotten knocked off of the tow dolly strap tightening ratchet but no real damage occurred.

I went back to the RV drivers seat, realizing that I could drive this to the next exit and hope that there was a way to get a new tire. It is now fast approaching 4:30 PM and any place that may be open would surely be closing soon. Not to mention that we are really out here in northeastern Colorado in the middle of horse country and there just may not be anyplace near to get a tire from. Especially this tire of 13" rim size. But, although I did not think of this at the moment, there are plenty of horse trailers in this area. It didn't really matter, we ended up not having to buy, borrow or steal a horse trailer tire and rim. We took off driving on the highway with our emergency flashers on, traveling at about 50 miles an hour so as to minimize the risks of getting run over on the road by other faster, much faster, moving vehicles. (The speed limit on this road is 75 mph) We made it safely to the exit and while we were making our way Megan was on the laptop connecting to the Internet via our Verizon plug in Internet card ( have I mentioned how great an idea it was for me to get connected via this plug in device just before we left Middletown) and was looking up tire shops in Fort Collins and more specifically this exit and surrounding area.

I made my way to a gas station close to the exit and parked in an almost out of the way place being as inconspicuous as one can be in a 33 foot motor home pulling a tow dolly, a car with a car top carrier mounted on top, 6 bicycles and a dirt bike attached precariously on back, while she did the research. Unbelievably she found two entries. I am not quite sure how she did that yet but she did and simultaneously had pulled up google maps and was telling me where they were from where we were sitting. I didn't even know the road we were on but somehow she had located us. She was also giving me phone numbers to call so I started dialing the first one and much to my horror the number had been disconnected. With the next number she gave me I felt my attitude shift a bit becoming a little frustrated with the situation and for some unknown reason told her to just give me the address and directions to get to the place and we will drive there and see if someone can help us. She looked around, attempting to get her local bearings and began giving me directions on how to get to the only other option we seemingly had.

We pulled out of the station and took a right to get back to where we had pulled in off the main road in town. Seeing the street name she directed me to take a left. As I did we crossed from Fort Collins into the not so metropolistic main street of Wellington, CO. She them directed me to continue through town until I crossed over railroad tracks and to take the very next right on to PODUNK LANE (just kidding I don't remember the road name but I do remember that as I did make the right I asked her if she was sure of the directions because we had just turned int a residential, THE residential area for this town. She checked again and said that this is the right road to lead us to the very next and last road that would lead us to Harold's Tires. As is it in most small towns, residential and commercial interests are mixed as a matter of convenience and grandfathering in on zoning regs.

As we made the only and next left and crept slowly thru the neighborhood with our contraption on most wheels, we were the vision of the week for the people of the hood who were outside on their porches in in their yards fortunate enough to catch sight of us looking like we had no idea where we were. A few hundred more feet down the road and we came seeing upon old tires stacked in various formations along side of a long driveway and realized immediately that we actually we going to find a tire shop (or an unruly neighbor) there. I pulled into the long open gravel drive area and eased up towards the building. The overhead garage door was open and two guys were leaning up against the back of a specially designed work truck. One that is modified and used for the mobile changing tires out on the highway usually for trucks and buses. And gauging by the size of the tires along the driveway in, they did a lot of that kind of tire change. In fact, there were so many huge tires stacked on racks and on the ground that I said out loud that it will be absolutely amazing if they have our tire size here in stock as I jumped down from the drivers side door.

I looked over toward both men who had not moved anything but their eyes since we had pulled and and I had jumped out of the vehicle. I shouted a hello and waved and they both responded with their greeting. As I approached where they were I began explaining my need of a trailer tire and wondered if there was any chance that he might have one in stock. I really didn't know which one I was talking to yet but as soon as they had interpreted what I was in need of they both moved but one started heading to the dolly. AS he went he shook my hand and said, "Let's see what size it is'" This was at the least promising. He searched around the side wall of the good tire for the size and immediately upon recognizing this size said, "Well I have it in a radial but not a biased tire!" I looked at him and then looked away and down towards the ground like I was contemplating whether I should put that radial on this dolly or not as he stood there looking at me in a very easy non pressuring way. Really what I was thinking was that I had no idea of the difference between those two tires and how much is this going to cost me because there is no way that I am leaving here without a tire and I didn't really even want to consider (although I simultaneously was considering what that would be like) sleeping in the parking lot of this place

overnight while he got me the right tire because I didn't even know if you could mix a radial with a biased tire now that i knew that I had biased tires. But this was the moment of genius for me. I turned back to him and said, "I need your recommendation here. Will the radial be OK to put on here and will it match OK with the other tire I have on?" He told me the differences between the tires and how much better the radial is and told me that it will work just fine. I gave him the go ahead (without getting a price - like I had any other choice anyway) and asked him if he would like me to pull the RV up and to turn it around so that the bad tire was adjacent to and in front of the open garage bay and on top of the only concrete pad in the area to make it easier to work on. He nodded affirmatively as he was walking towards the bay to grab the tire and I headed back to the RV to reposition her for the change as his friend, that he had been talking with when we arrived with our little issue and who had come over to assess the tire issue with us, announced his departure when he realized that we had made a deal and his buddy was going to go to work.

To accomplish the repositioning I had to turn the RV 180 degrees and face it the other way, which means I had to either make a really wide turn in the lot of this place or go around the block and turn it somewhere else to get it in the right position. His lot was big so in the essence of time I decided to try to make the U-Turn on the property. So I swung way out to my right, way off of the gravel driveway and onto the grass area, without asking for his permission, to try to get wide enough to make the complete turn. My judgement about turns has gotten pretty keen over the last eight months and I have been able to make most of them (and have learned how to very gradually adjust the tow dolly while in reverse to get myself out of a couple of tight spots so as to not have to unload the car and all of the other crap loaded on the back just to turn the RV around) and this time I made the turn with a foot to spare between the RV and the tree in front of me.

Once positioned and back out of the RV, I noticed that our man of the hour was getting every thing he needed, in the way of equipment, out of a second truck parked outside the building and not out of the garage. This is when he told me that they were really a mobile tire service and that they rarely do any tire work here at the shop. He asked me how we had even found him because most everybody just called for service and did not come to the shop. I told him, to his amazement that we had Internet access almost all over the country with our Verizon card and that we found his address in a Yellow Page listing. He shrugged and smiled and went back to the task at hand.

I told him that knowing that he was usually out on the road that I was really glad that he was open and here when we arrived and having a slow day just for our benefit. He laughed and told me that it had actually been a real busy day and that this was the first time he had been back to the shop all day. I was taken again by the level of serendipity that has been and continues to be provided for us on this trip but at the same time, as I said, have come to rely on it as the way it works when we are in right alignment listening to our hearts and following our passion. (It almost feels embarrassing to say that but at the same time this is what has come to be our way of being - no real issues just amazing surprises and the reality that it all works out just fine and better than we could have imagined) This time was no exception!

I went back to the RV to take some notes of the event and by the time I came back out he was completed with the operation and was making out the invoice. Now comes the moment of truth. We've all heard the stories of shock and horror of folks being broken down on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in small town and being taken advantage of cost wise, so I was not really sure what to expect. But again I have gotten to the point of what is is what is and I was back in business and ready to roll into Wyoming with a much better tire than I had before and it was all working in my favor. So I asked him confidently what I owed him and he went over to the truck and into his small, rectangular, aluminum box type, invoice container and shuffled through a bunch of papers to find the one he had, just moments ago, made out for me. As he found it and turned toward me to hand it to me he said, "And the grand total is.... $65.00)

In my head I went, Oh thank God and in my heart I went, you see, just trust.

After paying him I went over to the dolly and saw that as a reult of the blowout the strap that holds the car on had gotten knocked out of position and had to be realligned and adjusted so I began to spin the ratchet to loosen it so that I could reposition it on the tire. Trying to move the ratchet was impossible because the locking clip I mentioned before had be knocked off in the upsetting of the cart.

Randy came over a looked in a went back to his shop and grabbed his set of them and replaced mine with in a minute and I made the final strap adjustment and was on the road again amazed at how things just work out if I don't push and try to force them into place.

He was a real nice guy. His name was Randy and he lives in Fort Collins. He allowed us to take his picture and get to know him a little bit but most importantly to allow us to let him know how much of a difference he made in our lives just by being there.