Day 52- Kamloops

 August 2

Hipcamp site

Today was going to be a very long drive.  About 7 and a half hours.  Despite that we didn't get on the road until 11:30 or so.  We seem to have trouble getting going early, not like at the beginning of the trip.

Everything was going fine until maybe 100 miles from our overnight.  Out of the corner of my eye I see smoke and chunks coming out from under the trailer.  I get pulled over and the tire I had changed out a few days prior had blew.  Looks like the sidewall separated where it met the tread.  Luckily no damage to the trailer.  

Luckily I had all the tools so I had it off in no time.  However I had never repaired the original tire so I had to get out the plug kit and fix it.  That was a bit more difficult than I thought it would be.  All in all we were on the side of the road for about 30-45 minutes.  If I didn't have to repair the tire I could have had it swapped out in 15.

The landscape coming into Kamloops really reminded me of Arizona with all the browns and reds in the rocks and mountains.  Sparse ground cover.  I was waiting for a tumbleweed to roll across the road.  The ponds had some sort of white stuff covering them.  One was so covered it looked like ice.  Not sure if salt deposits or what.

Unfortunately the repair was not holding very well so we had to stop every 30 miles or so.  Since Summer wanted manwhich for dinner we had to make a quick stop at the grocery store for buns.  Got a few other things since I was there.  

It was now about 8pm.  Our campsite was about 30 minutes outside of town and we just wanted to eat so we stopped McDonalds.  They have a Big Mac with no meat!  How much do you hate life to want to order one?

We finally got to our site about 10pm.  We were pretty much in someone's farm field.  There was a stream next to us.  It was kind of nice.  I wish we had gotten there early.  Inside the camper was hot though.  about 90 degrees.  If we had gotten there earlier I would have set-up the generator so we could turn on the a/c, but not at that point.  We just opened the windows and turned on the exhaust fans.  It cooled off before too long.