Ooooops.

It was a lovely sunny fall afternoon, and we were driving around the gravel roads near and accidentally on the firing ranges of Fort Richardson.

I took dozens of photos. I wanted this photo:



So my guy...

when I said, "hey, there's one," slammed on the brakes, threw the Suburban into reverse, and destroyed the right rear tire.

Mark got busy with the jack and the spare tire and all that...

I took a couple more photos of the unexploded ordinance sign, and some other photos...

Several people drove by (we were rather out in the middle of nowhere). Most of them stopped to see if we need help -- "nope, just a flat." (If you are going to have problems, having problems on or near a military installation is the way to go. Those are some seriously helpful people.)

He really really destroyed that tire.

Lucky for us we got to the auto repair near our house just before it closed, so we could drop off the tire and see if anything was salvagable (nope. We ended up buying four new rims and tires -- the rims and tires were wider than normal, and hard to find here. It worked out okay, because we got studded snow tires a couple hours before it started to snow for the first time. People ended up waiting hours to get their snow tires installed a couple days later, when it got slippery for the first time.)

The guy at the service station laughed when he saw our tire.

We were parked behind the building, the north side of the building. I noticed this moss

growing on the side of the building below a drainpipe.

It was a good couple of hours, even with the destruction. I think this may be Denali, the highest peak in North America.

Even with getting lost and destroying a tire, we still managed to find our way back to civilization and Costco. I love that -- I am out away from people and cars and noise and everything, and then half an hour later I am at Costco. Peace and quiet and giant economy-size bags of rice. And somebody to change my tire.

What more could a girl need?