June 26, 2021

Across The Desert Flat.

My husband and I decided to go for a ride. We headed to the northwest and once firmly outside of Tucson, we exited Interstate 10 and started driving west. There were some pretty mountains in that direction so we pointed the car that way and started playing a game we used to play back in Illinois. Find our location on the car GPS and start following the “yellow” roads. (Our GPS shows main roads as yellow, back roads as white). Soon we were out in the middle of nowhere along a road that followed an irrigation ditch through a lot of desert land. The road quickly turned to dirt and there were no longer signs of any towns close by. We continued our trek. We had plenty of water, we were feeling good, and having fun.

We passed through a wash that had a trickle of water in it. It wasn’t a problem, we made a splash and on we went. It was about five minutes later when a yellow light lit up on the instrument panel and a chime was to be heard. The message said, “Check Tire Pressure”. It showed the left rear tire had lost about 15 pounds of pressure. We spotted a grove of small trees. I pulled near the trees, well of the road, and together we watched our tire go flat.

Luckily, we are two resourceful men and through solid teamwork, we had the tire off and the donut in place in about 20 minutes.

The directions accompanying the jack and “convenience tire” indicated we should not exceed 35 MPH. So we made our way through the desert at this speed and finally gained cell service. The closest service station was 20 miles away but guess what! Service stations don’t really do the service station anymore. We finally made our way to the closest Walmart. They squeezed us in, and 2 1/2 hours and $15 hours later, we were on our way home from Casa Grande back to Tucson.

We still really enjoyed our day.