Friday, April 22, 2022. Tire Trouble part II. Tampa Area
We were able to get through the night without air conditioning and used the bathrooms at Cracker Barrel before setting out for the day. Google Maps said there was a trail very near by so we set that as the destination, but it took us down to the end of a dead end gravel road with mean dogs waiting. It turns out the Withlacoochee trail is a 40+ mile paved old rain grade that runs along Hwy50, so we have no idea why Google Maps thought it was at the end of this gravel road. We turned around and noticed that we did not have a tire pressure reading from the sensor on the outside driver side rear wheel, so Ben got out to check the sensor. He was surprised to discover that the tire valve stem had snapped off, leaving the tire flat, and the tire pressure sensor and valve extension hose completely missing. We retraced our path through the RaceTrack gas station and Cracker Barrel, but found no trace of the missing sensor and hose. Ben had to google for an other tire shop and found one 5 miles down the road. The shop owner said he was confident he could get us patched up if we could get to him, so we limped down Hwy50 along the actual Withlacoochee trail to the T&L Tire shop in the next town.
The T&L Tire Shop isn’t much to look at, but the men there were very hard working good ‘ole boys who even ran into the next town to get the correct valve stem which turns out to be very rare. The “office” area had taxidermy mounts of a deer, boar, and wild cat, as well as a 2020 dollar Trump bill on display. We were fortunate that the tire was still in good condition despite being flat. Since it was on a dually, the second tire had to carry twice the load, but we had kept the speed below 45mph from when the broken valve stem was discovered to T&L tire. They put on properly secured valve stem extension hoses on both of the outside rear tires so that we won’t have the same trouble later on down the road and let us buy a spare valve stem to keep in the RV in case of future problems. We were there for 2 hours, but they only charged us for 1/2hr of labor. They were roadside angels.
We were then able to make our way towards our next destination which was Sun City Center, where Jack’s wife Sharon’s father lives in a retirement community. We stopped at a Planet Fitness on the way and got in a work out and showers, and also refilled our drinking water and coffee water bottles. The temperatures were in the low 80’s. There was a nice breeze and high cloud cover.
As we approached Tampa, the traffic became bumper to bumper for about 15 miles, but we found our way to Wayne’s retirement community and were pleasantly surprised that there was a nice shaded visitor parking space next to a huge oak tree that our RV fit into easily. Janet encountered one of the security men driving an electric cart around the parking lots and learned that we were OK to park overnight since we were visiting a resident. That solved the question of where we were going to spend the night. As we drove through Sun City Center, we had our eyes on restaurant, hospital and church parking lots as possible boondocking sites.
Jack and Sharon’s flight into Tampa arrived in the late afternoon. They had rented a car from a Hertz Tampa location that was 15 miles from the airport, but whose location closed before they could get to it. So they had to arrange a one day rental from the airport to tide them over until they could pick up the off airport rental vehicle tomorrow. They met us at Wayne’s place where we visited for a couple of hours, meeting his cat Kala and made plans to have brunch on Sunday, featuring prime rib and pancakes, and we’ll take Wayne out to the nearby Bob Evans for lunch tomorrow.
We returned to the RV and found lots of TV channels OTA, so we got to watch reruns of Charlie’s Angels and other 80’s shows.
