Yesterday, our first morning parked on this people-y but pretty corner lot in Ohio, Campground Dave was up before the sun.

We had a few hours of leisure ( for me coffee, writing and staring at the wall.  For him, dervishing) before we headed out to see the family.

Getting the dogs ready to go brought back memories of trying to corral small children and their belongings to the car at the same time.

We needed to make several trips back and forth between the car and Bella-BOW and still forgot the water dish.

Finally, all loaded into the Jeep we started to back out.

No.

Not.

Happening.

According to the nifty dashboard monitor thing, the right front Jeep tire had only half as much air pressure as the others.

Remember when the only way to know a tire was flat was by sight or when you heard that “whup, slap, whup” as you were driving OR when you thought the driver beside you was crazy because they were waving and honking?

Yeah, this is way better than that.

Handy Dave jumped out of the car to get his air pump from Bella’s cargo bay.

The dogs and I watched as he opened one, then two, then all of the bays trying to find his air pump and still he came up empty handed.

The nice gentleman parked beside us pumped up our tire for us, and we were on our way.

The rest of the day was spent with family.  My daughter in law and I got pedicures while Dad Dave and our son relaxed at home.   Later, as each arrived from school, we saw both grandsons.  It is hard to believe how much they’ve grown!   Time does fly and seeing them was another confirmation of how fortunate we are to be doing what we’re doing.

The rain was coming down in sheets as we loaded the dogs back into the car to head back to Bella.  Once again the dash display showed “low tire pressure”  ( and we forgot the dog food bowls).  We stopped at a gas station to put air in the tire, googled tire repair but found nothing open until today, so we said a little prayer to the tire gods and limped back to the campground.

This morning Dave was sitting at the tire repair before they opened their doors (of course!)  The tire fixer guy found a nail right at the edge of the sidewall in a place that won’t allow for repair. A new tire will be in on Monday.

Nails happen.  The good kind ( the pedicure) and the bad kind ( the tire).

We’re fortunate the tire didn’t go flat when we were towing, that we have a full-size spare and our plans have us here through Wednesday.

Last night we partially planned out our route west.   Lots of adventure coming up!

Stay tuned…..