Raven’s RV
The ongoing education and adventures of two rank newbie RVers

May 27, 2008

Camp Flying J, Lodi

Filed in Blog

Our lives are not straightforward. I don’t think anyone’s lives are, really, but ours in particular seem to have a sense of humor to them that require any actual plans to fall by the wayside quite rapdily. This afternoon I had found someone who said they had my size inner tube in stock. We walked into the strange showroom, festooned with hunting and fishing trophies, and the remarkably dour proprietor fetched the tube and dumped it–I use that word quite on purpose–on the counter in a plastic bag.

The trouble was that the valve was about twice the length of mine and we weren’t sure it would fit. So we left without the tube, and having already looked in two different stores for tire patches, wandered over to Kragen’s where we found them, along with a couple of bikers and their small, cute dog sporting a Harley-Davidson collar. Don got into a long discussion about things mechanical with them and I sat on the floor and played with the dog.

So, Don patched the tube. Then we went to the shed and put the tube in the tire and the tire in the bike. Then we put air in the tire and ten minutes later, as if by magic, all the air had leaked out. Rinse, and repeat. Looks like the tube either isn’t patchable or it has a new leak that we didn’t find.

You see what I mean about planning?

So, right now we have inflated the tire, turned the tire so that the residual fix-a-flat gunk should fall downwards onto the hole, and we’ll see what we’ll find when we get back tomorrow. If this does not work:

Plan A is to put fresh fix-a-flat in, ride the bike for half an hour, and see if that fixes it. (Then we’ll pick up an inner tube from Cycle Gear in Sacramento–they have it in stock–because we need to go to Sacramento in any case.)

Plan B is to ask the proprietor of our storage shed if we can store the rig for just a few hours so that we can ride two-up on Don’s bike to Cycle Gear.

Plan C is for me to ride Don’s bike to a campground where we leave the RV so we can ride two up to Cycle Gear.

Plan D is for me to ride Don’s bike all the way up to Paradise, which might make sense in any case as mine doesn’t currently have a right rear footpeg, and riding on back is beyond uncomfortable.

Plan E is to trailer the bikes in a U-Haul. Plan E won’t happen because that would make things too easy. ;)

I have a silly life.