A Change of Tires

Marie-Claire has always said that she wanted to be rich enough to go to San Francisco just for lunch. Well I accommodated that wish, although I think she really meant fly to San Fran for lunch and back to Vancouver by the evening. This quick look at San Francisco has reminded us that we really want to spend some time, staying right in the city. Our equally exploration of the Delta and one night stay there, tells us that we want to spend more time exploring it by boat and by road. So San Fran is definitely on our list of places to go again.

As we went our way south towards the connecting highway with I-40, we stop for the night in Shafter. Aptly named because that’s how we felt – shafted- when we paid for a commercial campground. Shafter is a very small town, in all respects, with a major rail line and a freeway running through it. The one decent looking restaurant is a family run Mexican eatery. Decent food at a reasonable price, but definitely not home-cooked from scratch. Tucked into our mega camper “rig”, we dream all night of trains.

The next morning I discover that a rear tire is looking flat – it has a nail in it. Pump it up and off we go down the freeway to Bakersfield where we hope that we’ll find a tire shop open on Sunday morning. After some searching and asking lots of questions we find a Pep Boys Auto and cut a deal for two new tires, the front ones rotated to the back and a 4-wheel alignment. Before the job is done we are beginning to wonder why they’re called Pep Boys but eventually we pay our money and new tires on the truck, new flip-flops on our feet, we hit the road again.

Another day or so of driving and we hit I-40 which will be our principal route across the USA.