Monday, November 03, 2008

Arizona - Day 2

Friday, Halloween, was pretty much a free day: the only scheduled event was dinner in Tombstone followed by a cowboy and western music show - turned out that an annual festival was in progress.


I spent most of the day, however, traveling to and from Tucson on Tuzigoot business. As I mentioned, somewhere on the trip down Tuzi’s hot water heater cover came off. I had called a RV supply shop in Tucson, found they had the part, and decided to pick it up. We had planned to go to Tucson on Monday, en route to Las Vegas, but we changed our minds because of the sidewall cracks in Tuzi’s tires. They didn’t look threatening (to me), but conventional wisdom is that you only get 5-6 years out of RV tires - aging gets them before tread wear does. Tuzi’s tires are 5.5 years old. I consulted with a couple of our fellow travelers (in the good sense of that term) and they thought caution dictated replacing the tires. Personal stories of blowouts were quite sobering. (Club rallies provide excellent opportunities to learn.)


So, when I got to Tucson I called tire shops and found one that had six tires of the size that I thought I needed. I arranged to come in Monday to have them installed. Then, when I got back to the RV park, I discovered I had mis-remembered the tire size. How dumb is that? Calling back to Tucson, I could only find six tires of the correct size at one shop, but they were an off-brand - not Michelins.

Now, I must admit I had not diligently checked the tires for cracks before we left Albq, so I figured that if I had driven down on cracked tires, I could drive home on them, too, albeit more cautiously. (Extending that logic, I could drive on them endlessly, but no-o-o.) I generally drive in the low 60s on interstate highways. I stayed in the low 50s returning. As I write this, it’s Sunday evening in a T or C RV park, we've had no problem, I can’t see any change in the tires’ condition, and we’ve only got 160 miles to go tomorrow. [Update Monday evening: No problem.]

But, back to Tombstone. We had some time before dinner to look around. Here's the historic Tombstone courthouse and a passing stagecoach.



Meanwhile, on Main Street, outside of where we were fixin' to get some vittles, it looks like trouble's a-brewin.' That's Wyatt in the red tie. Something tells me that this situation will not turn out OK.


Dinner and the show were fine, though we left at intermission. I was tired and the festival schedule showed that the second-act acts would be playing on Saturday afternoon and we could come back for that. Which we did.

Next: Day 3

Cheers,

Rob and Susie

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