Day 1 – Phantom’s Adventures: San Diego to Beaver, UT

By the numbers

• 1 blown tire
• 6 hours more than planned to get to the campsite
• 47 recently blown tires seen in/next to the road in the dessert
• 118 highest temperature in degrees it reached while driving the Mojave (according to the Tahoe’s thermometer)
• 207 dollars it cost to get 2 brand new, matching tires installed on the trailer

After a week of preparations to get ready for our trip, we made it out of town this morning.  The take off was pretty smooth… we planned to leave at 8 and actually left our house at 8:30.  This was pretty good, I think, considering we got up 40 minutes later than planned, and my parents didn’t show up with the boys until 8:15.

It was fitting that the people who bought our business texted us with a question at 8, just as we were trying to leave.  The chapter in our life that we’re closing with this trip, trying desperately to hang on… but we made the break, and the new owners of our business answered the question before we did… that too being symbolic that, yes, they will be OK without us.

This was our first trip for more than 100 miles in our trailer, and I’d like to say the first day of the drive was uneventful, but I can’t.  Actually, uneventful isn’t always good – or interesting, but nor is eventful always good either.

Our Tahoe has no problem pulling a 3000 pound trailer; however, the trailer was swaying a lot early on.  It’s a bit scary when the trailer starts to pull your car back and forth across the lane.  It happened at least 3 times before I figured out how to better get it under control, but I also knew it shouldn’t be swaying so much.  We had a back rack on the back of the trailer and this extra weight on the back probably wasn’t helping.  So we stopped for a bit in Murrieta to re-allocate the weight in the trailer, putting more in the front and removing one of the bikes.

This seemed to help, but the experience gave Paula second thoughts about wanting to drive with the trailer.

So we’re all good… until we’re driving through the Mojave Desert and blew out a trailer tire.  Fortunately, I was able to feel it right away and pull over quickly.  But changing a tire in 110 degree weather was fun.  It didn’t take long, but it felt like we couldn’t get it done quickly enough as it was a 2-lane road with barely a shoulder and lots of vehicles driving by.  The jack we used was very small at the top where it was holding up the trailer, and I held my breath every time a Semi went by.   The trailer would shake from the force of the air rushing by.  So, needless to say, I worked quickly.

You can’t tell it’s only 110 degrees out…

I should have taken a picture of the carnage, but the rubber tread on the tire had completely separate from the steel belts in the radial tire.  I can only imagine this was caused from the intense heat and the age of the tires (>5 years, I would guess).  Fortunately, we found a Pep Boys in Vegas that was open until 6 pm and whose staff was very helpful.  We arrived at 5:15 and they had us out by 6.

We were planning to get to Beaver, UT that first night, which was still hours away.  We called ahead and found a KOA campground with space, then made the drive.  We had forgotten about the time change, so it was 11:45 pm when we arrived – not that 10:45 was much better – and thankfully, 65 degrees.  Sweet dreams.

Driving through the Mojave Desert