Pikes Peak Day 1

Pikes Peak Day 1

Departure was a miraculous 6 am, just an hour behind schedule. Other than bags and food, only a handful of items had to be packed last minute. Apparently planning works fairly well.

The drive was nice and smooth at first until our mechanic Wes noticed tire noise around Dallas. Nobody put it on paper and as we learn, if it doesn't get put on a list it doesn't get done. So we cruise a while longer, the truck getting worse than expected fuel mileage. At the next stop, a kick to the passenger inside dually tire revealed a flat. We poked along to the next town and lucked into a podunk tire shop who happened to be open as a trucker had called an emergency service call in for the same reason as us. We chatted them up for a bit, made some new friends and got the truck back together. While waiting in scenic Quanah, Tx for our tire to be patched, we see a familiar truck go by and of all people it happens to be our good buddy Jeff from Boulder Creek Farms. We've spent the past two weeks testing with him and were apparently trekking the same highway as his family.

Back on the road, we get all the way from Quanah to Dalhart, Tx before a trucker waves us down to notify us of another flat.. this time on the trailer. We bring the trailer into Dalhart with a beautifully shredded tire and back the rig up so the flat axle is hanging over a curb and we swap out for the spare. We're now out of trailer spares and managed to forget the truck spare and luck doesn't appear to be on our side. It will be a miracle if we make it the remaining few hundred miles.

With a good deal of luck and careful driving, both truck and trailer make landfall at camp in Cascade, Colorado at 9pm local time.. Our exact scheduled arrival time. Take into account leaving an hour late, the hour we gained in mountain time and two flat tires, that's pretty darned good!