Today we begin the long journey back to Atlanta. We spent 4 weeks in Boise and got in well more than our fair share of fun and visits.

Not quite daylight at Sharon’s house. The car is clean and packed perfect Tetris style. That won’t last a day.

In fact, it all fell apart a bit faster than I had imagined. About an hour down I84 I got an alarm that our rear passenger tire was failing. I had just enough time to get to an exit at Glenn’s Ferry and get it off the road before it failed.

It’s been a long time since I did any road side tire service. Luckily, the lug nut gods were with me today and I was able to muscle them off without special tools. I put on the “doughnut” and we limped back into the Interstate (it’s the only road out in eastern Idaho) to the next town. They were eager to help but don’t have any tires in our goofy Mercedes 19” wheel size. They called down 35 miles to the next stop (Wendell, ID) to folks they know – who also didn’t have any 19” tires our size. In the end, we had to take our chances and continued on to Twin Falls – a town big enough for a Les Schwab.

Les Schwab did have our tire size in stock. Our tire had shattered from the inside out – the steel belts came apart and were beginning to poke through to the outside of the tire. No repair was possible, and with 4-wheel drive Mercedes vehicles, you can’t just put on one new tire. So, our chariot now has a complete set of new shoes.

Waiting for the service was the easy part – just down the road was a restaurant with outdoor dog seating on a balcony that overlooks the gorgeous Twin Falls gorge. By the time our lunch was done and we walked back, our car was ready to continue on.

Winston leaving a little present at the edge of the gorge. The girls are more involved than one might suspect. Winston gets diarrhea sometimes on these trips – stress of the travel and disruption of a structured regime. Making sure he’s “clean” is a high priority for the person who has to spend the rest of the afternoon in the back seat with him.

The rest of the day was uneventful.. we finished up in Western Wyoming.
Dawn in Rock Springs, WY. It’s just me, Winston and the rabbits out at first light.