Springing Leaks

The Marathon Motel and RV Park sits about 100 yards from the edge of town. In the distance black crags creep up for mountains and the wind pushes through the air without so much as taking a break for lunch. Around 10am, early for the family Tumble I proudly admit, I heard what could best be described as the hootin’ and hollarin’ of a high pitched but old man, leather for skin and the strands left on his head serve as the closest thing we’re going to get to a white winter. He’s screaming something across the park to Mexican cohort, not fully audible but to the tune of “I struck a t-line! It’s a T-LINE!”

It’s all I can do to laugh and enjoy the morning, just easing into my work day as Tristan is scheming up whether he’ll ride his bike and then play with GI Joes, or play with GI Joes and then ride his bike. And where will the snacks come in? I can imagine him pondering it all as intently as a stock junkie looks over rice commodities.

It seems that they’ve sprung a leak. They’re trying to put in a dump station — a dedicated area where RVers who don’t have full hookup access to sewage pipes can stop and unload their human waste — and they’ve sprung a leak. Actually, it’s the third time they’ve accidentally sent their shovels and pick axes into an underground pipe and struck it rich, water geysering up from the dry dirt like a fool springing out of the king’s court after a good show.

They’re not the only ones in trouble on this hot and windy January morning. It seems our tire, the front right one to be exact, has seen it’s final days, and as I sit outside to sip my tea and call my loving mom back in Pennsylvania, I see her sagging heavily, an old fat tortoise no longer fit for sea, dead in the sand.

It’s not that we haven’t seen it coming. She had herself a slow leak, we’d lose about 10 psi a week, if you can call that slow. A few phone calls to our insurance company, Geico, and the local tire repair shop, Oasis Tire in Alpine, Texas, and we find out that the inside of the tire has a complexion resembling Edward Scissorhands dear, sweet face. So it’s a new tire for us, and within a few hours Jorge from Oasis Tire has actually come to us, replaced the tire and back home in time for his afternoon smoke break.

Leaks will spring, let’s just be happy you can replace a tire, or patch a water pipe.