Sparr vs Flat Tire

I experienced a blowout while driving from Hilo to Kona a while back and the ensuing adventure was a bit longer than expected. Let me regale you with the story of my flat tire…

Round One

A blowout is no fun, but this one was remarkably comfortable thanks to the run-flat tires on my 2006 Honda Odyssey. While that might sound like good news, it’s not, but we’ll get to that later. I pulled over and it only took about ten minutes to get the spare installed. At which point I discovered the spare is also flat, but since it has a thicker tire I couldn’t tell just by handling it. Although I didn’t have a 12V air compressor, a failure to be resolved at another time, I did have my bike pump and plenty of time, so I got to work. After a few minutes of pumping I’d made no progress and investigated to discover a leak around the valve stem on the spare.

At this point it was 5PM on the day before Easter. Most businesses on this island are closed on the weekend. Most businesses on this island are closed on holidays. Most businesses on this island are closed after 5PM. And, the kicker, most businesses on this island don’t answer their phone. All that added up to us spending about an hour trying to find a mobile mechanic or towing company, leading to finally finding someone who was closed but knew a guy who knew a guy who did after hours towing. We called that guy and he asked for $400 for the tow. In hindsight, I should have taken it, but it seemed like unnecessarily much at the time.

We called a few friends in search of a ride home and found someone willing to cross the island just for the company. While we waited for the ride I prepped our gear to fit as much as we could in his car and leave as little as possible behind. That included taking both wheels off both bikes we had with us, and getting all the electronics and paperwork out of the van. We got lucky that he was in a station wagon and it all just barely fit! A few hours after the blowout, I was back home with a blown tire on the rim sitting in my garage, and so ends round one of Sparr vs Flat Tire.

Round Two

Sunday was a lost cause, so my next efforts were on Monday. I finished up work shortly after noon thanks to the time difference with my office, then set about my quest to get a new tire, get it mounted, and get it back to the van. I had taken the jack out of the van so I tossed that in my medium-size hiking backpack along with some snacks and water and other supplies. Then I strapped the tire to the pack, took a selfie, and started walking. I picked three tire shops, including Costco, as likely targets, the closest being about five miles away. I walked about a quarter mile down a 10% grade to a main road then stuck my thumb out. Standing still with the tire didn’t earn me any sympathy, but as soon as I put the pack back on and started walking I got picked up. My first ride got me halfway there, and my second within a block of the first shop. First shop told me they have never seen the numbering scheme on the tire (235/710R460) and can’t deal with it. Second shop was Costco and they were able to tell me it’s a specialty tire (PAX) that they can’t order. I spent over an hour waiting for them to get me a quote on new rims and tires, which they failed to accomplish. While waiting I also called a few other tire shops. I left voicemails with the ones that didn’t answer and spoke to the few that did, all of whom told me they didn’t have the tire and couldn’t mount it if they did. A few said they could order the tire and would get a quote for me. I asked for the same on all the voicemails. One of them told me to try the Honda dealership, but they were already closed at that point. I also did some googling and learned that Honda had actually been sued and settled over how hard it is to find a mechanic that can work on these wheels and tires. I bought a folding cart at Costco so that round three would be a bit less back-breaking, and got a ride home from a friend.

Round Three

On Tuesday I had not heard back from any of the shops with quotes to order the tire, so I went online and ordered a pair myself. $500 for the pair, plus $40 shipping from the mainland which is astounding considering that FedEx’s consumer portal quotes $840 for the same shipment. I watched a few YouTube videos and convinced myself I could mount them if I had to. It’s not a trivial process, but it’s not THAT much harder than mounting a regular tire without power tools would be.

The tires arrived on Thursday morning. I called the local Honda dealership and they said they could mount them, so I loaded up the cart and started walking from home again, this time with one rim and two tires (blown and new), along with the other supplies like the jack. A helpful guy in a pickup truck picked me up pretty quickly once I was walking on the main road with my thumb out, and he took me right to the Honda shop. Where, of course, I was told after a short wait that they can’t mount the tires, and the only shop that can is on the other side of the island. At that point I took out my phone and called the same shop I was standing in, asked the person on the phone very specifically if they could mount my tire (by type and brand) and was once again told yes. I asked person B to go educate person A and I started packing up to walk again.

I walked about a mile without finding a ride. Fortunately along the way to my next destination was a cool place to get food and drink, which meant my packed snacks could stay packed for later. I sated myself and arranged for a ride across the island with the same friend who was there for the blowout. For timing reasons, I took a Lyft to get closer to them, once again barely fitting the load into a vehicle.

Along the drive with my friend we passed the van and it was right where we left it. We made it to the mystical lone tire shop with ten minutes to spare, after having called ahead a few times to make sure they could fit us in. They said we were risking having to leave the tire overnight, but we were committed at that point. Fortunately between the two of us we convinced the shop to do the work in their post-closing-to-customers pre-done-working hour, possibly aided by the fact that it was an educational opportunity for some folks there who hadn’t seen this kind of tire before and definitely by my willingness to take back and dispose of my own blown out tire.

It took them about an hour to get the tire changed, and then we started the drive back to the van. Unfortunately, we discovered that someone had broken a window on the curb side. Two of them, actually, since the first one they broke wasn’t big enough to reach through. Fortunately they didn’t bother climbing in, presumably because the inside already looked ransacked from where I’d had to unpack the spare and then removed all the valuables. This one is a tiny bit my own mistake; I shouldn’t have locked the doors after already removing the valuables. I’m surprised they didn’t steal the battery or other low hanging fruit. I’m more surprised they left the extra jack they were probably going to use to steal my wheels. This is my second bit of evidence that the more remote parts of the island aren’t as crime-free as the populated areas seem to be.

Aftermath

I drove the van back home with no issues other than cold wind and buffeting from the missing window. The next time I crossed the island in the van I took the second new tire with me to get it mounted, so I wouldn’t be on mismatched-wear tires. On my last trip to San Francisco before shipping the container full of my stuff I picked up the glass and put it in the container, to save $300+ in shipping. The Honda dealership was able to install the big one, and I had to install the small one myself which went mostly well. That was a month ago at this point, and the only remaining step is to wind up the insurance claim for the broken window and see if their shop of choice can source the one rubber gasket I wasn’t able to replace during the install. At this point I’m calling the flat tire saga complete. I learned a lot, about Hawaii, my van, my friends, and my minimal ability to hike with a 60+ pound pack. Onwards and upwards!

Post-Pandemic Plans

As I am winding down my time in Hawaii I want to put my intentions for the next year out into the world. Writing them down to share might help keep me on track, or inspire collaboration or advice, or …

Hawaii - July and August 2021

Barring some unlikely last resort options bearing fruit soon, my efforts to buy property in Hawaii are winding down. Over the next two months I’ll be trying to sell most of the extra stuff I brought or bought down here (solar panels, tractor, van, car, furniture, etc) and packing to ship a much smaller load back to the mainland. I expect to hand off the lease of the house in Kona to one of a few friends who have visited and are coming back and want to stay here long term. If that goes well, I’ll have a place to crash here should I visit again in the future, alone or with friends.

Los Angeles - Late August 2021

I recently purchased a large tour bus / coach near Los Angeles. When I return from Hawaii to California I’ll need to quickly deal with the initial logistics of that purchase and the future plans for it. I expect to fly into LA, spend a couple of days doing a rough sparse conversion on the bus (remove most seats, install kitchenette and bed), then register the vehicle as a housecar / motorhome and upgrade my license from a noncommercial C to a noncommercial B with 45ft housecar endorsement. What I really want is a commercial A, so I can carry passengers for money, but that has a mandatory 14 day waiting period and some other logistical requirements that I can’t squeeze into this step of the plan so it can wait a bit longer. With that taken care of, I’ll probably pick up a few friends who want to carpool north and set out for the bay area.

Bay Area - September to December 2021

Work wants me to be in Mountain View three days a week (Tue/Wed/Thu) starting September 1. I also want this, because remote onboarding hasn’t been going well, and I’d like to rack up some face time with my colleagues. Separately, I want to experience and take advantage of all the perks of tech-y office life while I have the chance.

I will be living in my bus somewhere near Mountain View during the week so I have a short walk or bike to the office, and spending weekends elsewhere, mostly in the bay area, with remote work in the daytime on Monday and Friday. In the new bus I’ll be a lot more graffiti-avoidant than in my previous buses, so overnight parking options will be more constrained, but I still plan to spend most weekends somewhere more interesting than the peninsula.

This will also be the time in which I pursue doing a “fancy” conversion on the new bus. All of my previous conversions were more function than form, with a lot of exposed plywood and 2x4s, square corners, and standard household or garage furniture bolted into place. This time I am aiming for something more like a commercial RV or party bus, the sort of result you’d expect if you hired professionals to do a mid-five-figures conversion job. Rounded corners, custom built and fit benches and cabinets, visually appealing upholstery and decoration, etc. A comet from the east coast has expressed interest in collaborating on the interior design. A well informed friend has recommended Maker Nexus in Sunnyvale as a good makerspace that I might use for my fabrication projects. I’ll be doing a lot of metal work, welding, carpentry, woodwork, upholstering, electrical wiring and electronic gadgets, etc.

Festivals/etc - September to December 2021

While I have a normal day job mid-week, remote work for long weekends, and a bus to live and play in taking shape, I plan to get back into the habit of going to big events regularly. This conveniently mostly coincides with a lot of big events returning from year-or-longer hiatus periods. I’ll also be trying to get out for smaller scale activities, but that requires less planning months in advance. I’ll be filling in my calendar as I learn about more events, more events announce their schedules, and I coordinate with friends, but here’s a tentative list of stuff I’m 50%+ likely to attend:

September 3-6 not-Burning-Man in the Black Rock Desert north of Reno (not in the bus!)

October 10-18 http://everywhenproject.org/ in the Mojave desert north of Los Angeles

Nov 12-15 http://darkodyssey.com/surrender/ (NSFW) in San Francisco

2022

Right now, things get fuzzier past the end of the year. However, by the start of the new year I hope to have a pretty good idea of how I plan to finish it.

Work has committed to making it possible for us to work from different offices, and my department has a presence in Atlanta and Boston, so I have some vague ideas of finishing the round-the-country road trip that I put on indefinite hold when I landed in San Francisco. Along the way I’d be spending some months or longer in one of those places, where I’ve lived before and have contacts and community to reconnect with.

There’s also the possibility of transitioning to full time remote work and going on the road for a while, in a new town or park every few days or weeks like I did back in 2015.

Either way, I plan to be taking what I’ve recently learned about shopping for real estate and coordinating people and money, then turning that into something big. I have an idea to pick the CoDwell name and concept back up, or to do something more commercial and profitable (like a b&b or campground or retreat center) and top-down with more specific goals and plans (rather than leaving it up to the participants to plan around their passions).

Beyond that… who knows?