By Barbara Jorgen Nance

Our travels with this pull trailer might come in competition with GǣMr. Toad's Wild RideGǥ at Disneyland. The saga of our travel trailer continues with yet another crazy experience in Arizona recently. We had two flat tires at once, both on the same side of the trailer, on US 8 highway in heavy truck traffic. This trailer may have nine lives and could write its own book of hair-raising adventures.

To backtrack, you may have read my column of our hitch-hiking rat awhile back. Mr. Rat's wild ride to Los Lunas, who exited in a huff when we stopped for our dogs to take a break. Mr. Rat was all shook up. He paused, turned slowly and stared holes in us with contempt. But then, Mr. Rat chased after us when we left to hitch-hike yet another ride. Fortunately, we outran him and didn't stop in Los Lunas on our way home.

Back home, we safely unhitched the trailer under his metal carport, where we cleaned and prepared him for company to stay in. Our trailer is also our guest house. Many friends and relatives have called it home for a time. I wished I would have supplied a guest book. Our next surprise guest was a very large bull snake that had caught scent of Mr. Rat under the trailer and followed it up under the bath tub where he got stuck! Snakes can't back-up. We had to cut a hole in the wall and pull him out. Now, there's a lovely board screwed to that wall, adding to the ambience of our shabby chic guest house.

Our most recent episode with our aging trailer didn't involve varmints. Our tires turned on us! We had two flat tires at the same time, one was brand new. We were traveling west on us 8 at high speed. We heard the noise and I viewed in my rear view mirror rubber flailing around from the two flat tires, slapping the trailer. The fender was ripped loose and dragging. Next, the awning leg came loose, which slapped the big rig truck next to us a couple times. He's now honking his horn. We were in tire terror mode as we pulled off the road. After catching our breath, we took off what was left of the two flat tires and replaced them with one spare. We slowly limped down the highway to Gila Bend, hoping something was open on Sunday. Petey's Tires was closed, but fortunately the Goodyear Tire shop was open. On we went to Quartzite to meet up with friends from California.

One blackened side of our trailer, caused by tire flogging, looks like it should be in the next Mad Max movie. Trailer trash or Trendy trailer? We'd fit right in out in the southern desert of California, along the Salton Sea. There's an artsy area called GǣFlat Slab CityGǥ where many GǣMad MaxGǥ and other artsy trailers live. Perhaps our trailer will retire there someday.
Ponder On