The Windmill Posts

My second turn I heard the familiar “bing!” of an alarm, meaning the car is not comfortable with it’s current situation. Tire pressure warning. I was going to check those anyway, it’s been a minute. Fine, I’ll stop at the huge gas/service station at 494 and France. I figured they were big enough they would have good air machines.

Oh, did they! I hadn’t seen one of these before, and it was cool. Set the pressure on the display, then go pop the hose on your tire and it inflates it to that value. Front left, filled and happy. Rear left, filled and happy. Front right and- oh wait, not happy. The valve stem cover was tight. Like not moving. Fine, it’s stuck, pull out the trusty pocket tool. And:

Well, that seems bad. It’s pretty much toast. I head over to the service area and asked a guy if he could help me. Four different tools later and he declared it screwed. He got the left rear off, but the front was really On There. He eventually got it unscrewed to the point where it looked like it was about to come off, but it just started spinning. Screwed. He told me to go check inside if they could help me at the service desk.

While I’m thinking the guy behind the counter would not be able to help me – he didn’t seem mechanical. Maybe more pharmaceutical. Looking around though, I saw the service desk. Super nice area, two smart and competant guys. One of them started checking me in, and gave me the rundown.

If you can’t get the (metal) cover off, it needs replacing at the base and beyond. And the pressure gauge would need to be replaced. $100. We’ll see what it comes out to. But I really want that pressure monitor working, so yeah.

Bad news: “Hour, Hour and a half” turned into “Hour and a half, two hours” and here I sit. Their waiting lounge is very nice, big comfy chairs and free water bottles.

It’s 10:02, 10:00 was the original launch time. Nice that I left early. My ETA was around 5, which is really late for the typical day, which got me worried about check-in time. Called the number on the web page, which was the Lewis & Clark visitor’s center. Guessing I’ll miss checking that out. Super nice staff assured me that if I get in too late. While I’ll probably remove the Pipestone National Monument from my itinerary, I’ll get back there some day on my Minnesota travels.

Trying to count this as a good omen. The tires will be in great shape and I’ve got time to write. An embarrassing revelation – I never finished Don Quixote, and barely remember the content I did read. It’s was though. Anyway, I’m wishing now that I read it and retained it so I could say “this tire situation is like when Don Quixote did xxx” and I would look super smart. Going to go search for the golden book version.

So here I sit, waiting. if you’re looking to visit me, I’m in a customer lounge. Not stressing. (Seriously, surprisingly calm)

Update:  they found an easy fix and I’m back on the road!  And THAT’s I could omen for the day.