Bob and I were really excited to travel to Vegas for WPPI. For fun, we decided to drive north on 395, then go east through Death Valley as neither one of us had been there. About 20 miles from home, we got a ticket for overtaking a really slow car and when we pulled back into our lane, there was a double yellow line. The road was straight for miles and hardly a car it sight, but unfortunately, the one car coming toward us was a cop car. So, we started off the trip with a ticket.
As we were driving through Death Valley, Bob said that he thought we had a flat tire and stopped right away. Yes, it was flat and lost air so fast that the tire was even ripped. We went into the trunk to get the tire out, but we found out there was no jack. Thankfully, some tourists stopped, but they were in an SUV, so there jack was too tall for the car. WIth a big heave, two of the men lifted the car and we were able to just get the jack under. WIth the tire changed, we drove 15 miles to the nearest convenience store. We still had 150 miles to Vegas and there was one little town about 50 miles away that had a tire store. I should mention here, that I have AAA, but as we were in the middle of nowhere, we had no cell phone signal. The attendant said we could use the store phone for $5 per call and $2.50 per minute. Bob called the tire store, but their tire changing machine was broken. Our two options were to drive the 150 miles to Vegas on a spare tire, or drive 55 miles the opposite direction to Lone Pine. As Lone PIne had our size tire, we chose the latter as it was closer. About 2 1/2 hours later, we were driving back by the convenience store and once again on our way to Death Valley.
Bob had planned ahead to do a 5k run at the bottom of Death Valley. So here is Mr. Fitness!
Who knew that a desert could be so beautiful. Due to all the rain this year, Death Valley certainly wasn’t the barren wasteland that I had pictured.
by Suzanne
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