Today, August 11, is our anniversary. We woke up at about 8:00 and loaded up our stuff and took off for our new destination, Timberlake RV Park near Mears, Michigan. We started on the one lane rural roads in Indiana and sort of got onto wider and flatter roads as we proceeded northwest through southern Michigan. MI-131 was a pretty good road with only a few cleverly hidden potholes, some of which we missed. 131 becomes a four lane freeway north of Schoolcraft and the traffic was moving along at about 65 or 70 miles per hour with us hanging out in the right lane.
Right after we passed the exit for Wayland, a small coupe pulled up next to us and the driver started making strange gesticulations and hollering at us. The frantic waving was impressive but we could not hear a word the poor guy was screaming. We eased off on the throttle and pulled to the side of the freeway with the guy stopping about 100 feet in front of us. We rolled down the windows as he approached and that is when he told us that our spare had broken free of the carrier on the back bumper of the trailer.
Apparently, the spare tire mount system had some flaws that extended use has brought to the forefront. When the tire broke off right in front of the guy following us, it dropped to the ground but, since we were motoring along at about 65 mph, the resulting motions followed a random, erratic pattern with the tire bouncing around for a while before allegedly coming to rest alongside the highway. He sped up, flagged us down and told us about the location of the tire.
We continued to the next exit, reversed direction until south of the Wayland ramp and turned around again to cover the area where the tire should have been. We did find the cheesy tire cover that was protecting the tire but no wheel and no spare tire was visible along the section where it had purportedly come to rest. Perhaps the guy did not see all the tire’s antics and it bounced into some farmer’s cornfield. If that’s the case, them he will find it when he mows the corn. Maybe the tire went into a brush-choked ditch where we couldn’t see it. Maybe some resourceful but not particularly honest jerk picked the wheel and tire up before we could reclaim it. In any event, it is about $3-500 for the stuff to replace it.
We abandoned our spare tire repatriation efforts after a bit but we did find a nifty new black cowboy hat, Size 7 1/2, lurking in the deep weeds along the road and we claimed it although we are not sure why. Maybe it will look good on the Barbarian Invader. We continued up 131 to Grand Rapids where we pulled off long enough to withdraw some cash from a B of A ATM. We now feel having some cash clears up any misunderstandings when B of A’s genius fraud protection fiends curtail use of the card until we call to discuss why we might have bought diesel twice in a day when driving long distances.
At Grand Rapids we veered off on I-96 going northwest and it turned into 31 which we followed into Mears, MI. Some 10 miles later on some everything but level two lane blacktops we pulled into Timberline RV. Losing the spare tire, the wheel it was mounted on and the important parts of the former spare tire mount was a pisser but nobody got hit with it when it took it’s little excursion and we did find a nifty hat. I guess since nobody was killed by the spare going bonkers at 65, I should look at this as a good anniversary.