Sometimes the fun isn't in the cache

Thursday night Erin was having some friends over, so I was on my own for a cache. After the 1 year streak of finding a cache everyday I still haven't given up and I'm hoping to make it through August.  The cache I chose to go for was about 5 miles North of Argusville on highway 81.  Definitely a bit of a drive, but from the satellite view I could tell there was a place to park and there shouldn't be anyone around to chase me away. Arriving at the approach I parked and started my search.  I figured it would be on the small sign near some power equipment, but after looking all over I knew it had to be somewhere else.  I looked over the power equipment before spotting the cache, not on the equipment, but near it.  The cache was well hidden and I felt lucky to have found it.  I signed the log and headed for home.

I got on the interstate heading south and was almost to Harwood when I heard a loud noise and the steering felt odd.  Pulling over the the side of the road I poked my head out and saw that the front driver's side tire didn't look much like a tire anymore and smelled a bit like burned rubber.  I was close to a bridge and was able to back up and angle myself to get a bit more room between the car and traffic. Damn, this sucks. Almost on autopilot I got out and looked in the trunk for a spare.  I'm not that handy and didn't really have any idea what I was doing.  The in the compartment with the tire was some rudimentary instructions on what to do.  I knew the jack needed to be in a specific spot to actually lift the car, but wasn't quite sure.  Crawling around I found what appeared to be a good spot to put the jack.  It wasn't.  I looked again, and found a better spot and repositioned the jack, this time the car was actually lifting. It was progress.  After getting it jacked up I figured out how to get the tire off.  I needed to lift the car a bit more to get the spare tire to fit, and once it was on I tightened the lug nuts in the order described in the owners manual.  I was feeling good about what I had been able to do, knowing it wasn't that much of an accomplishment but being proud nonetheless.  I packed up the jack and tire iron as well as the remains of the tire and headed for home again. Distrustful of the spare tire, and my handy work I kept the speed very low on the way home.  It was a nerve wracking drive but eventually I made it home safely. So much for just a quick park and grab.