Muchacho Polaco

Yun and I made a quick trip to Tucson last Wednesday as we had to drop something in the mail which had a deadline by Friday. So we departed Wednesday afternoon and arrived at Matt’s house around 6pm. Matt ditches us for work (lame), so we went through some packages and packed up for a departure the next day (it was intended to be a quick trip).

Dana returned from Minnesota on Thursday in time for us to partake in what has become my favorite tradition of steak and potatoes. Obviously I make the potatoes and they are always amazing. Matt grilled some enormous t-bones. I ate too much. I always eat too much when it comes to the meal. So we decided to depart early Friday morning so we could enjoy Thursday evening. In retrospect, this was not the best of ideas. Mostly because I detest waking early.

We had the car packed up and were ready to go shortly after 6am. Everything seemed fine upon departure, but within a few minutes, Tila decided to unload the entire partially-digested contents of her stomach. Not a pretty sight and not exactly something I wanted to deal with first thing in the morning. So we spent a considerable time cleaning it up. Lovely, now we were on our way. But within seconds of departing for the second time, she unloaded once again. What a miserable situation. She would do the same one more time before we finally made it home.

On the positive side; I was able to buy a sweet military jacket for $2.99, as well as updated the registration on the Mazda.

We haven’t been in Tucson on a Sunday in quite some time. So last Sunday was nice as we were able to have breakfast with Matt/Dana and Nick/Betsy/Silas. Then we were able to visit Rincon PCA. I haven’t been there in over a year. It was nice to see people I haven’t seen for so long.

We took a trip to Tucson last Saturday. Before departure, I noticed the tires were a bit rough. We bought the prior set just over two years ago, but with the weekend trips to Mexico for nearly a year, they wore down quick. As such, I scheduled an appointment for a new set on Monday morning before returning home.

Unfortunately, we didn’t make it far out of town before a tire blew. Gladly, it happened at an area of road construction and as such the speed limit was quite slow (and I was behind a truck going under the speed limit). It could have been ugly.

I found a place to pull over (a very rare thing at times given the lack of shoulders on the highway) and it took only about 15 minutes to replace it with the spare tire. In light of the speed restrictions, I didn’t want to wait until Tucson to find a replacement. So we stopped at a number of places south of Santa Anna.

White skin is a problem for this sort of thing. It means I pay 10 times the price as anyone else. The US plates on the car don’t help either. So after a number of absurd offers ($50 US for tires that had zero tread), I decided to head to Santa Anna. However, just before getting to that town, there is a tire place (a shack) on the side of the road which we have prior familiarity. When we moved to Hermosillo and had all of our stuff loaded on the trailer, one of the tires on the trailer blew out at around 3am. The only place we could find was the same place we found on Saturday. They also were the only people with a fair price for a decent looking tire.

The tire repair place was located on the side of the highway and doubles as the residence for a good size family. We happened upon the birthday party for Carlos on his 6th birthday. We were offered cake while we waited. I generally don’t like cake. But it would have been rude to refuse, so I ate it.

With our new tire, we were able to make it all the way to Tucson where were able to partake in our most awesome steak and potato tradition!