Continued from Santa Fe Day 3 Part 2.
Every successful day starts with coffee. We are leaving Santa Fe today, heading North into Colorado.
Not much going in this part of NM. Fortunately, not a super long drive today, only about 4 hours.
IHOP into dispensary. So many dispensaries everywhere. There’s gonna be a shakeout and many will not survive.
Got this at Carlsbad Caverns, time for the kids to try it. It was pretty good gummy candy.
Apache plumes seeds that RL had collected.
Red soil.
Desert like with small shrubs.
Lunch spot.
Typical New Mexican fare.
Kids are happy to be out of the car and roaming around.
Nom nom nom. Little KL shares the pork chops with me. The girls share a bean and beef burrito. RL gets her own plate, works for us.
Been a long time since I’ve been in a restroom with a coin operated dispenser.
Starting to see some small mountains.
And starting to see taller trees.
And back down into in the middle of no where with more desert like landscape. 5 minutes after this photo was taken, we were just cruising along going 75mph when all of a sudden we hear a loud noise coming from the back of our car. It sounded like hiss and then whirring sound….fuck, I think we may have gotten a flat. I looked at the tire pressure sensor on the dash and sure enough we were quickly losing pressure. WTF happened?
By the time we pulled over to the side of the road, the tire had gone completely flat. That took no time at all to lose all the air, the tire got a major leak really fast, but it looks fine from the side, so wasn’t a blowout.
RL hopped out of the car saying, “let’s get going on the tire change.” That’s my girls. I got working on the widow maker scissor jack while RL worked on getting all the lug nuts loosened.
We looked around the tire after we got it off and found the source of our problem. Neither of us saw anything on the road, but apparently we ran over something sharp enough to cut straight through the tire tread, the strongest part of the tire. It was the rear passenger tire too, so it meant that the passenger front tire maybe also ran over it, kicked it up and just somehow punctured the rear? Who knows.
Spare tire going on. Prior to this trip I had taken the car into the shop to get a 5 tire rotation. When I got the car back, the shop told me that they couldn’t rotate all 5 because the spare in the back had a different set of lug nut locks. What? Then I remembered that when I bought the car, the dealership added on a set of black lug nuts as part of the purchase. Well, when they switched out the black lug nuts, they left the spare with the original silver lug nuts. So when I got back home from the shop I dug around and found the silverlug nut key and also the 3 extra black lug nuts(one locking) that the tech at the dealership was too lazy to put on. And fucking good luck that I did that back in Austin because if I didn’t I would be stuck here unable to remove my spare tire with three small kids in the car. I guess I still got a 5 wheel rotation after all.
Just last tightening up, and then we’ll be done soon.
Team work makes the dream work. My wife is awesome. We knocked out the tire change with these giant heavy wheels in about 20 minutes. When we got back into the car, the kids complained that they were hot since the AC wasn’t on while they were inside the car on their ipads. RL and I just looked at either other and shook our heads since we were both completely covered in sweat from the heat and tire change.
Spare tire back on, took a while for the car to recognize and reset pressure. We are about 1 hour out from Durango at this point, so we calling around to find a spare tire. We first looked for a Land Rover dealership since I knew the Defender came in a factory tire size with very very few choices. No Land Rover dealership was anywhere close to Durango so we started calling tire shops in Durango. We ended up talking to Discount Tires, and they were also unable to get any Defender tires within a couple of days. That left me no choice but go up to another common Defender upgraded size 275/55/20, which is a much more common size. I wanted to Falken Wildpeaks, but they didn’t have any in stock, so I went with BFG K02. I think if I had more time to think and was less stressed out at the time, I would have gone with a different tire. Maybe one that was more highway and less offroad. In fact, after we had put the tires on hold and we were driving towards Durango, I was second guessing myself a lot that maybe I should have gone with a different tire. Or maybe I should have just gotten one nonmatching spare and just gamble that I won’t get another flat on this trip and I’ll just buy a matching spare when I got back to Austin.
We really did break down in the middle of no where. There was one other car that stopped when we got a flat and offered to help us. We thanked him and told him we’ve got this. It’s good to know there’s are still good samaritans around.
Almost there. Please don’t get another flat right now…
Starting to climb and gain elevation.
Still climbing.
Now up high.
It’s a plateau up here.
Then we drop down the valley into Durango, CO.
First stop, Discount Tires, which also happens to be in the same shopping center as a Super Walmart. RL took the kids to Walmart while I took care of business at Discount Tires and met up at Walmart after I was done. This worked out quite nicely for us since we were needing to do grocery shopping and now we are not wasting any time while the Defender is in the shop.
From Texas, I think I’ll buy these.
As we were almost done with our shopping, I got a text that the tires had been changed. I left RL with the girls and walked over with little KL across the parking lot to pick up the car. Looking slammed from this distance, I guess they put the car into low access mode.
K02, supremely capable offroad, but mediocre wet weather grip and they are kind of loud. I know, I had them on the Jeep Rubicon right before the Defender. But it is what it is, got tires now so at least there’s that. It was also very expensive at $2100, ouch.
So lucky they are in the same shopping center.
Yup, immediately notice how loud the K02 are compared to the oem Defender tires. Sigh.
Heading into the mountains towards our cabin that we’ve rented.
About 30min out of town of Durango, turned off into an unpaved road neighborhood.
There’s our cabin.
Looking very cool, a classic log cabin.
I will say, these tires do give the car a nice aggressive off road look.
Very cool. This is what $607 a night gets you 30min North of Durango. 3 bedrooms(one of them is the loft) 3.5 bathroom cabin with a hot tub!
But you know what it doesn’t come with? AC. It felt a little hot in here, it was in the mid 80s in the afternoon. We opened some windows and turned on the fan, it got a little cooler, and we know by night time it’ll be plenty cool.
What a day, happy to be here relaxing at the cabin.
The sisters playing quietly and nicely, little KL doing what he does…
Such a cool log cabin with giant logs.
This is my room by myself tonight in the lowest level. RL will sleep with little KL in the middle level bedroom while the girls take the loft. The idea is to put little KL to sleep by himself in the middle level in the queen bed. He’ll still be able to hear his sisters in the loft so he won’t get scared of sleeping by himself. He has to sleep by himself because he’s a distraction to everyone else in the same bed with him and no one goes to sleep.
Oh look, hot tub! This was one of RL’s requests when we were looking to book a mountain cabin.
I agree, hot tub is a great idea. What wasn’t a good idea is how I took off the cover. The first time I took it off I didn’t realize that the loop of metal was part of the mechanism to help you take the heavy cover off.
Pretty awesome.
Gonna make this cabin the main focus during our time here in Durango. Gonna make dinner and have a family meal together.
Texas Opa’s sausages.
Ta da! Seems like a very typical family meal for us.
Yum. Instant rice ties the meal together nicely and quickly.
The kids complain that the sausage was too spicy. Ugh, Opa’s, why did you have to make your plain beef sausages spicy. I made them eat some anyway.
I really enjoyed this meal. Felt nice and wholesome.
It’s hot tub time right after dinner. We told the kids unless they eat, they don’t get hot tub.
Awesome.
If this is awesome now in the summer, it’s gotta be super awesome in the winter with snow.
OK, bed time for the kids.
Adult swim time. Except, of course little KL kept coming back out on the deck and telling us about how he can’t sleep etc. etc. I don’t remember why I was getting this sign, probably said something dumb.
To be continued at Durango Day 2.