Why You Should Always Put on Sunscreen

 

There was no use in putting on sunscreen this morning, I was packing up in the rain and heading toward more.  Normally I wear it every day but given my travel plans I figured I’d let my skin breathe a bit.

Five minutes later, with Beagle in tow, I was at the Valero station on the corner putting air in Wurzig’s left rear tire.  We had driven about one-hundred yards when the tire pressure monitoring system warned me, in no uncertain terms, that the tire was at 15 PSI.  That is so far from 44 PSI I thought the system was failing. 

But it wasn’t. 

While filling the tire I saw the culprit:  A nice shiny nail embedded in the tread.  The tire seemed to be holding air so my first thought was to get Beagle somewhere safe.  We drove the one-hundred yards back to the River West RV Park, asked for another night and were given that plus directions to a “nice guy at the 76 station” who repairs tires.

With Beagle unhitched and the tire still holding enough air, I cancelled my previous navigation to Starbucks and replaced it with directions to the 76 station.  A young fellow gave Wurzig a long look and me a short one before looking at the tire, and said,

“Sorry, but this is one we cannot fix.  You will need a new tire.  Would you like me to print out an estimate?” 

“Sure”, I said, and “My god”, I thought, “Here we go again with Porsche tires, you need one you need four.”

He provided three estimates, two in a brand that Porsche would never recommend, the third coming in at over $2,000, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that was for four tires.  But still, it was time for a second opinion.

I called The Reno Tire Pros, a name that inspired confidence, and they asked me to come on down so they could see it.  By now I was really missing my second cup of coffee so I took a minute for myself and drove through Starbucks.  Sitting in the line, I looked at the person behind me and thought, “She might be having an even more difficult morning than me”, so when I reached the window, I bought her order too.  Random acts of kindness.

Over at The Reno Tire Pros, they were quite sure they could fix the tire but mentioned it might take an hour or two as they had other appointments ahead of me.  Completely understandable, I was just thrilled they could see me the same day.  They welcomed me into the waiting room, Noses and all, and we settled in.

Fifteen minutes later, Wurzig was back out front all fixed and ready to go.  Random acts of kindness.

Now, technically, I could have still hitched up Beagle and easily made it to Eagle Lake as planned.  But I had really had enough—too much stress and not enough exercise so I decided to hit a local trail.  What a great decision that was!  Six miles of crunching dirt, open valleys, wet pine trees, and the best trail dog ever:  At one point, we had to walk along a fallen tree to cross a river so I unleashed Opus and climbed up.  He struggled to find a way up but eventually made it, passed right by me, crossed the river like an Olympic gymnast on the balance beam, hopped down on the other side, turned around and waited for me.

It was a fantastic hike, a mere fifteen minutes away from downtown Reno.  During the hike we had sunshine, rain, sleet, snow flurries and more sunshine.  And, of course, me without sunscreen.

-K