Peace of mind....

5:53 am - Friday - March 15th - GNHS - 54° F, humidity 72%, wind 11 mph out of the northwest.....raining today with a forecast high of 63° F.  80 degree temps have now been pushed off until next Wednesday....12 days until liftoff!  On this date in 2015 TLE and I were hiking the Airport Loop at Sedona, AZ.....

I was out of bed around 4:30 am....way, way too early for a retired guy, but sometimes you have to suck it up and get 'er done!  The long awaited day had finally arrived when the VW and American Trailer would get new shoes.  We wanted to get to Parkhouse Tire in Thousand Palms by 7 am, their opening time, so we could be first, or second in line to get our tires, and be out of there by 9 am so I could get my long overdue haircut at 10 am, when Supercuts opens.

We awoke to high winds Thursday in the 25-30 mph range, and by the time we were in the VW they were over 30 mph, and the air was filled with dust.  The drive north on 111 was not pleasant as we were being continually buffeted by the wind out of the northwest, however, as we neared Indio the winds began to lessen, and by the time we arrived at Parkhouse Tire just before 7 am they were not bad at all.  After dropping off the car TLE and I walked over to the local Starbucks for coffee, and an everything bagel for moi....

A stormy looking day

.....we were back at Parkhouse just before 8 am, and by 8:45 am all the tires had been installed.  Next up was a stop at the local COSTCO to top off our fuel tank for the trip to Los Algodones on Friday, then over to Supercuts where we arrived around 9:40 am.  By 10:15 am my ears had been lowered, and all that remained was to head to Ralph's to do a small shopping...we didn't have much room in the VW as the 4 trailer tires were taking up most of the hatch space.

We were actually back home just before 12 pm, where the northwest winds were still howling, and continued to howl into the evening.  Nevertheless, I needed to get those trailer tires installed, so around 3 pm I headed outside and did just that....TLE took a bunch of pictures.....

.....after tightening all 24 lug nuts with the impact driver I retrieved my torque wrench and applied 90 foot pounds of torque to each nut.  When we leave on the 27th we'll stop periodically over the next few days to recheck the torque on all 24 nuts to be sure everything stays tight.  Now we're set for 8-9 years on tires for everything.  In the last 12 months we've installed 12 Michelin tires.....4 drive tires on the Newell, 4 on the VW, and 4 on the trailer.  That's a lot of Michelins, and that is really a lot of money, but it is also a lot of peace of mind.

As we went to bed Thursday night the wind was still blowing, and still rocking the Newell, but around 4 am the winds abated, and it began to rain, unexpectedly, and will continue rain until around 12 pm today.  This was not in the forecast yesterday.  We'll be departing for Los Algodones around 7:30 am, and won't be back until late today (Friday).

Thanks for stopping by