Somewhat More Of Nothing And Oh We Had A Flat Tire

After an extremely quiet night in the Juniper country of Santa Rosa, NM (It was also extremely dark outside) we woke up to a clear blue sky and some low temps. I quickly found out that our batteries needed a charge so I started the generator. 

The question this morning was whether we should stay in the State Park or move on to a State Park in Kansas. 

We were still talking about it after emptying the waste water at the dump station.

The upcoming storm would blow here in New Mexico for at least 3 days, while it seemed more like 2 days in Kansas.

So finally we decided to move on to a State Park in Kansas.

Rolling down the I-40 towards Tucumcari, we suddenly got into a full stop and line-up. Checking on Google, Bea found that we had a construction area ahead of us, but that there also was a stalled vehicle, which obviously had caused the full stop on the highway.

It lasted about 30 minutes before an old crappy minivan had been pushed out of the way.

We got through New Mexico, then just sideswiping Texas and Oklahoma before passing into Kansas.

The entire drive can be called uneventful, even boring as the only thing you'll see are endless flats, first still some semi-desert, then morphing into cattle country and finally greener pastures in Kansas. 

The Texas feedlots with thousands of cows, kept in throngs, with little room for the animals to even move around, are among the most depressing sights I have ever seen. And the overpowering stench permeating the entire area all the way into towns...

At around noon we stopped at a Loves truck-stop for lunch. After lunch I did an inspection around the trailer. To my surprise I discovered a flat tire on the passenger side.

Running my hand around the tire I discovered a screw embedded in the tire.

I pulled out my 12V air pump and brought 50 PSI back into the tire. Meanwhile, Bea had found a tire shop online, located barely 0.2 mile away in walking distance.

 I drove the rig over to their shop and was admitted right a way into their shop. Within the next 20 minutes the two young fellas had taken off the wheel, got it repaired and mounted again. $20 later we were leaving their shop with a working tire again. Talk about being in luck when it could have turned out into a costly affair if it would have happened along the open highway. Now, I do have a spare tire, but just changing a trailer wheel on a narrow highway shoulder would have taken easily one hour and been a hazardous undertaking.

We had lost some travel time today and found out that the Kansas State Park we had thought of reaching today would be too far out yet. And again it proved so valuable to have Internet connection on-the-go. Bea found out that the Kansas City of Meade was sporting a city park which also serves as a free (!!!) campground. It is located just east of the city and it really is beautiful with its decade-old cotton trees. There is potable water and even a free dump station.

Pulling into the city park I noticed a light green Mercedes Sprinter with a German license plate. 2 people were outside and I waved at them going by. We found a camp site not far from that sprinter.

The owners turned out to be Hermann and Ursula Rall from Bavaria, both some real world travelers who have been all the way to Mongolia, most European countries, Canada, USA, Central and South America. Needless to say we quickly found ourselves in wide-spread conversations with them - in German. If you want to check out their website: www.rallhu.de

So, thanks for traveling along with us through this blog, there is more to come, so stay put.