Maybe it's easier to just move closer to the hay...

that is what we are starting to wonder!

So this past weekend was our annual Spokane trip for our yearly supply of hay. We drive to Spokane because even with cost of fuel, we pay less than 1/2 the cost of hay from Western WA.. which equates to more than $1000 savings every year!

We left Friday afternoon with Shannon's 1 ton dually truck and her 10 ton flatbed gooseneck trailer.. perfect combo for the 6-7 tons we had planned to buy... We stayed with Derek's nephew Rick and his wife Kristen.. Derek, Rick & Rob went golfing Saturday while I spent the day with Toni visiting and later that evening we all met up at the races. It was a busy couple of days with our late night dinner Friday and then late night again Saturday.. Rick complained that it felt like we were always on the go-go-go when we come to visit and there was no down time. We have a lot to try to fit in on our annual hay trip with dinners, golf, visiting friends & hay, so we decided that in the future we should definately plan a trip over w/o getting hay because that's the only time we typically drive over. It did not feel super busy and exhausting to us, we are used to being on the go constantly. It was funny to hear from the guys who are 10 years younger than us, that they couldnt handle not having the down time.. downtime, what the hell is that? :)

We started loading our hay at 7:30am on Sunday morning, decided the trailer looked great with 6 ton, so went ahead and put 1 more ton on. No squat in the truck and hardly any squat on the trailer, but the tires looked a bit low (one in particular was clearly very low with the load). So we filled them up at the farmer's place and headed to Greg's (my x-coworker) who lives in Spokane to visit him and his wife for a little while. Trailer pulled great, tires looked good.. All was well.. Had a nice visit with Greg/Yvonne and got back on the road at 10:30 to head West.

At 11:15 (about 40 miles from Spokane) we hear a big "BAM" with a jolt of the truck and knew right away a tire was gone! Shit! We pull over and the drivers side rear tire was gone, plus the rim was destroyed. After some panicking, we called Toni's son Darrel as he drives a tow truck, asked him if he had access to a spare tire/rim and we'd pay him to come out and help us. He had a tow call to make before coming to our rescue so it was 3pm by the time he showed up. 15 minutes later his tire was on the trailer, clearly low on air.. we paid him some cash and drove off to the nearest gas station for air. Got the air in the tire, grabbed a quick (not very good) bite to eat since we knew we wouldnt want to stop again for food and headed back out on the road.

As we approached the 1st rest stop on our way, we decided to stop and check the tire just to be sure all was okay. It was the Schrag Rest Area, about 20 miles East of Moses Lake, it was 4:15pm when we stopped the truck. We get out, walk to the tire and see that it clearly is about 1/2 empty on air and we can hear the air leaking out... We walked back to the truck and just sat inside with a blank look on our faces I'm sure as we both independantely contemplated our next move.. 4 minutes later the truck jolted a tiny bit and we realized the tire had just gone completely flat! Its a damn good thing we pulled off I90 or we'd have been stuck on the side of the road..

So we contemplated the options, made quite a few calls.. our emergency roadside service was happy to come help but the only help they could provide was to haul our trailer to a shop and wait til Monday to get the tire serviced. They dont carry tires/rims. So we quickly realized we would be sleeping at the reststop with no food and only a couple bucks in our pockets to each get 1 bottled drink out of the vending machine... I attempted to get pizza places to deliver to us, but we were too far out.. It was suggested that we unhook and drive to get a bite to eat, however we had no chalks to block the trailer tires, it was not a good idea to disconnect and prop that trailer back on the rear axle even more w/o that tire and it's a real bitch to disconnect anyways.. so we sat there and played "20 questions" trying to get time to slip on by faster. We slept OK, not great through that night.

At 7am, I was on the phone with Moses Lk Schwab. They did not carry the size tire we needed so they informed me that we'd have to buy 4 new tires, that no Schwabs carried that tire anymore! F*ck!! Thats pretty much what we were saying.. Derek went to the restroom at that time, said he was contemplating ripping the handdryers off the wall, he wanted to destroy something when he heard what we were about to pay to get back on the road... I told them OK, I guess we are stuck so come on out. I got smart and called around, talked to a guy at Tires West who said we should call Ritzeville Schwab because Moses Lk was a bit shady. I did just that and they carried our tire! AND they had some used tires/rims in the exact size we needed with 80% tread left.. I told him to bring 2.. we would put 1 on the trailer and take 1 as a spare. I was very happy and at 9:30am Monday morning, we were back on the road. I must mention that it had started raining 30 minutes prior to getting back on the road; however it only continued to rain another 5 minutes as we drove away from the clouds and into the sun.

As we approached Moses Lk we contemplated stopping to eat but decided we just wanted to stay on the road and get home asap; we'd wait til Ellensburg. 30 minutes after leaving the rest stop, cruising along at about 50-55 mph, BAM! Another blow out... GODDAMMIT! well that's not exactly what we said, but you can use your imaginations. :) The new tire we just put on blew out.... So it was now 10am, stuck again on I90.

We have now realized that although the trailer says it can handle the load, clearly the tires are rated for only 1/2 of what the trailer can handle.. We call Schwab from Moses Lk, as we are less than 15 miles away and waited for the them come out and put the spare on. In the meantime, we are still very hungry and now pretty thirsty and even with an empty stomach I still had a full bladder! Squatted next to the truck, right there on I90.. Nice! We decide the only 2 options available are 1) Drop a couple tons off the trailer at the nearest farmers house and just give it away to get rid of it or 2) Hope and cross all fingers, toes, limbs, any available body parts that our flatbed trailer is at our house and my parents can go pick it up and make the long drive to Moses Lk to get some of this hay off this trailer! See the day before Derek had told our neighbor he could borrow our flatbed on Monday, so we really needed a little lady luck and were anxiously awaiting the call from my parents saying the trailer either was or was not in our driveway! Thank You Jesus, Jim had not come for the trailer yet (he was unreachable via phone so we had no idea if he had it or not). So as we sat waiting for Schwab, my parents loaded up the trailer and started the 3 hour trek to save our asses!

Schwab finally arrived at 12:30, put the spare tire on and we drove a couple miles down to the nearest exit (Dodson Rd) and quickly got off I90, pulled into a large gravel parking area and sat waiting 2 more hours for mom and dad to show up.

We played a little more "20 questions" as we waited.. doing really good at keeping our cool with the entire situation. I was still completely stressed about the rest of the trip, hoping that removing part of the load would solve our problems, worried we'd blow another tire with NO spare left to put on! As we waited, Derek hit his head pretty hard on the gooseneck section, darn near knocking himself out..

2:30 WHEW there are my parents with some water! We had hussled them out the door so quickly that they didnt have time to think about grabbing a bite to eat for us, I dont blame them I was pretty much telling them what I needed them to do earlier and I felt bad, they had company over and there was no time to doddle. :) They heard that the pass was going to close Westbound at 7:30 for rock blasting so we were on a time crunch.

An hour later, we had 2.5 tons off the borrowed trailer and onto our smaller trailer and another 1/4 ton in the bed of our truck. 3:40pm back on the road for what hoped to be the last long haul to home! A quick stop in Ellensburg (yes we made it from Moses through Vantage Hill and to Ellensburg) for some fuel in dad's truck and a stop at Subway for some much needed fuel for ourselves! As we ate our 6" subs, it had been 25 hours since we had eaten prior.. Derek nor I could recall a time we had ever gone that long without eating and although I experienced some hunger growls, I wasnt really that hungry.. I think the stress of the situation had my stomach in knots so eating was low on my priority list.

As we approached Cle Elum the skies were lookin mighty ugly and as the downpour started, we just drove on, unwilling to stop. We hoped (once again) for a little lady luck in that the squal would last only a short ways.. and it did stop pouring as we crested Snoqualmie Pass, the skies parted to partially sunny and continued to stay dry until we pulled in the driveway at 8pm Monday evening! Amazingly that with the 2nd round of rain (about 45 minutes) the hay felt only a tiny bit damp. The small flatbed was parked in the shop and the big trailer parked in the barn isle to be unloaded most likely Wednesday... What a TRIP!

We worked really hard at maintaining a good attitude and finding the positive in our situation.. we did both get a day off (although only 1 of us got paid for that time off) and we got some nice time of relaxing and doing nothing (which is always nice to get away from TV and noise). And even with all the extra expenses of these damn tires, the hay is still cheaper than what we can buy over here in Western WA, whether its grass direct from a farmer or the bales in the feedstores.. Next year we plan to maybe rent a big Penske flatbed and let the tires be the problem of someone else and we'll plan to head back on a Saturday with our load and not Sundays.. we'll save socializing for another time! :)

We set out with all the right tools, we had a trailer heavy enough for the load, a truck big enough to pull said load, noone to blame.. shit happens and I'm so thankful to my parents for coming to our rescue!! What was supposed to be a 12 hour easy drive back, turned into a 36+ hour nightmare! It reopened the door to discussion on whether it might just be easier to move closer to the hay and have the hay delivered direct from field to our barn! hmmm... the possibility is there if the right job came up for Derek. Maybe it's time for a change..