Nevada with New Tires

Day 7 

Heading west from Moab, Utah to Ely, Nevada

This was not the most pleasant day as far as driving goes. But we now have six new tires.

Most of the driving was on a two-lane highway with service areas few and far between. Chris prefers four-lane roads where he doesn’t feel hemmed in.

We drove through hot desert land, rain, up down and around mountains, and we saw a dust devil.

There was a little anxiety about running out of fuel when Chris passed a gas station, opting for a further station and then saw a sign that there were no services for the next 100 miles. Luckily, we made it with with several gallons to spare.

As we gassed up, a guy from a nearby tire shop noticed there were chunks of tread missing from our front tire. It definitely needed replacing. Our tires are about five years old and that’s about as long as they last. So rather than worrying about the remaining tires, Chris decided to get all six tires replaced. We have two in the front and four on the rear. Chris knew we’d be needing new tires; he just didn’t know this would be the day to get them. But the shop very conveniently was able to replace them right then while we lunched at the nearby Dairy Queen. It only took one hour and a bunch of money. These tires are not cheap.

So we were lucky we didn’t have a tire blowout. And we did see some amazing scenery today in western Utah. And we got to eat yummy DQ sundaes!

But what’s that in the corner of the giant windshield? A new crack just showed up. Aaarrgh!

What was supposed to be a 7 hour drive today turned into a 9 hour day but we gained an hour passing into Pacific Time so camp was all set up by 4:30 pm. Time enough for chips and salsa with our Moscow mules before dinner.