a tiny trip to tickle town

I woke up at 6 Tuesday morning and there was no sunlight. I looked out at the mountains around the cabin and they were socked in with clouds. Joe got up and made a fire while I hauled water into the cabin. The temperature outside had taken a noticeable drop.

Joe made me an organic egg that he got from his neighbor's chicken and then we got dressed. The cabin was toasty by that point and the weather outside seemed to get worse by the second. My boots were wet from the previous day's hike when I jumped into some puddles because I like to do that. Though, I learned my lesson and won't do that any more on an ice climbing trip because wet boots suck in the cold.

At 7 am we put on our packs and started for California Ice. About 2 minutes into our hike the sky, which had just been spitting drops, launched a full scale sleety rain attack on us. We were both drenched by the time we got back to the cabin. We decided it would be bad to continue in that weather considering Joe didn't have any waterproof pants. Also, we were worried about being able to get back to civilization if the weather got much worse. We packed up the cabin and headed to Livingston with the thought that we could get an afternoon in at Hyalite.

But then disaster struck. About 2 miles outside of Big Timber Joe's rear left tire blew out. I was following him in Jake and all I saw was a big cloud of dust and then Joe pulling over to the side of the road. The tire was completely flat by the time he came to a stop. I don't know how he didn't wreck his car as we were going about 85 mph. My dad said that Joe must be an amazing driver.

The side wall was completely blown apart. There was obviously going to be no patching that tire. We tried to get the lug nuts off and they were on so tight that even with Joe completely standing on the wrench and bouncing they wouldn't budge So we packed everything into my car and headed to Big Timber, where Joe's brother lives. He gave us WD-40, a heavy duty wrench, and a pipe. We went back to the car and tried to remove the lug nuts. No such luck.

So we went back to Big Timber again, to a tire shop, and they lent us an impact wrench and a mongo super heavy duty wrench. As we were driving back to Joe's car he was stressing about having to buy new tires and possibly having to get his car towed if we couldn't get the lug nuts off. Then he said "oh well, at least it's not raining".

Moments later, it started to rain.

With the impact wrench we were able to remove the tire. Joe put on the spare and then we returned the stuff to the tire shop. They kindly refused to take the $20 Joe offered them for lending us the tools. Then we headed to Livingston, going 40 MPH on a 75 MPH highway.

Since I was behind Joe I had a few scary moments when, for example, a truck hauled up on us, apparently not noticing my flashers or the fact that I was going 40 MPH. He had a bunch of timber on his truck and was literally only inches from Jake as he passed into the other lane.

Around that time I noticed smoke coming out from under Joe's car. It looked to be from the area of the spare tire. I tried to call Joe but my crackberry was dying and didn't have enough power to make a call. I tried to text him and as I was doing that he pulled over to the side of the road.

I got out of my car, not easy to do since the wind was blowing really hard and every time I got my door cracked open it would blow shut. It was really cold.

Joe was standing by the spare tire yelling "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG NOW???" He looked like he was going to kill his car with his bare hands. As he had been driving along he heard a horrible clunk noise and then the car just got all fucked up, which is when he pulled to the side of the road. We tried to diagnose the problem but couldn't figure out what it was. While we were doing that Joe was saying "god damn fucking fuck!" and "fucking fuck!" and "this is fucking bullshit fuck fuck fuck! fucking god damn fuck! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! this is shit fucking fuck!" Etc. We were 13 miles from Livingston.

So we put the rest of his stuff in my car and left his car with the flashers on the side of the road and headed to his house to make calls since his phone had also died and neither of us could make calls. I called USAA and they agreed to tow Joe's car and pay for half the cost since he had to have it towed 35 miles away from where it broke down. Joe called around until he found a shop that would work on his car. It was going to be an hour until the tow truck could get his car so we decided to go to a grocery store, procure food and lots of wine, and then to drink heavily for the rest of the evening after his car was squared away.

Joe ran into a neighbor so I took the groceries over to check out. Our check out clerk made a comment about the amount of wine we were buying (but seriously, is three bottles a lot? I normally buy it by the case and no one says shit about that). Then she tried to scan a container of salsa that Joe had picked out and the bar code didn't work. It was around this time that Joe walked back over to me, so I said "You know, I wanted to get the salsa with the bar code that scanned. But Joe insisted we get this one." Poor Joe just looked so depressed and worried about his car I figured I would tease him to cheer him up. I told the check out clerk he was having a bad day so I was doing what I could to make it worse.

So she said to Joe, and I am NOT making this up, "I think someone needs a tiny trip to tickle town". Then she kind of poked her fingers out at Joe as if she were actually going to tickle him! Joe stood there with a look of absolute horror on his face. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. I said "Yes, you should definitely tickle him!" Joe looked at me as if he was imagining running me over in his car, if his car had been working, that is.

We dropped the groceries off and headed out to Joe's car to meet the tow truck. I had a weird conversation with my dad, who for some reason was convinced that someone had shot out Joe's tire.

Finally we got home, ate, built a big fire in Joe's chiminea, and drank 3 bottles of wine. I don't know if that made Joe feel better, but I'm pretty sure he at least didn't feel anything. I passed out on the couch around 3 am and woke up the next morning at 830 with a screaming thumping hangover.