Day 6 - Twelvemile Beach to Van Riper State Park, Champion MI

Today Speedy goes Hsssss in a churchyard.

It was an eventful day.

It started nicely enough with a nice, but chilly morning. Ellen and Sally went off for their short morning walk while Harry and I prepared to leave. The idea was to continue westward as far as we felt like, first stopping at Miner's Castle to actually see the Pictured Rocks and at the Visitor Center in Munising to get the park passport stamp.

Those two stops went off without a hitch. The view of Pictured Rocks and Miner's Castle, a rock formation, was nice but the light was pretty flat, so the colors were absent. There were quite a few birds around the paths, including a least two Ravens.

We then found the visitor center, got the stamps and were on our way. We drove west on Rt 28/US 41 until about 12:30pm before stopping at the Our Redeemer Lutheran Church parking lot in Champion, MI for lunch. After we had lunch, Harry pointed out the Speedy's right rear tire looked low. It was at only 40 psi, where the normal pressure is supposed to be 80 psi. This was not right.

Our first thought was to try to pump it back up. I pulled out our 12V tire pump and went at it. After about five minutes we got the tire back up to about 80 psi, but upon shutting it off we could hear a loud hssss! Air was obviously escaping. Feeling around the tread of the tire found nothing, neither an object in the tire or an air leak. What to do next?

The first thought was to call AAA. Rather than try to change the tire ourselves, why not let the folks we've paid money to, do it for us. I made the call, gave the agent all the information he wanted about Speedy. He said that it would be about an hour and they'd keep us posted. Nothing left to do but have coffee and wait.

Not so fast...30 minutes later we get a call back from another agent. She informs us that Speedy is too heavy for the light-duty service so they would have to find a medium-duty truck. I informed her that it was only a tire change, not a tow, but she informed us that the light-duty truck would not have the jack to lift Speedy. They would get back to us as soon as they found a medium-duty truck. This was not a good sign. We were about to relive our first trip out west where we ended up in the Adirondacks for two days when they sent out a wrecker that was sized for a commercial truck.

We waited about 15 minutes more and heard nothing. Time to bite the bullet and do it ourselves. Speedy came with quite a hefty 8000 lb. capacity hydraulic jack and we had already gotten the spare out of its undercarriage storage. How hard could it be?

First we had to get the jack working. It had never been used. All of the parts were still in their original packaging. You put the handle in the jack and pump it up and down and up it goes. That's if the handle moves—it didn't. After a bit of effort and some lubricant, it finally moved. The small hydraulic arm that the handle connected to had rusted in storage.

Time to place it under the van at the approved jack point and lift the wheel. Oops! Not enough lift to get the tire off the ground. A couple of leveling boards later we had enough height to get the tire off the ground...but could not get the tire off the wheel.

The lug bolts came off easily enough, but the wheel fits over a center hub and the wheel was rusted to the hub. We applied lubricants and wiggled the wheel with no effect.

At this point help arrived in the guise of a couple of young men who were riding by with their kids in a golf cart. They are staying at the campground across the road. They were electrical company linemen by trade, but one had worked at a tire shop when he was younger. They had a bit more strength and know-how than we did. With the spare under the van as a safety stop one of them took my axe, crawled underneath and whacked the back of the tire with hammer end of the axe head. Off it came.

We could find no evidence of a puncture, but there seemed to be a spot that had a bulge. This didn't look good. Time to find a tire shop. The fellow who used to work at one called his buddies at the shop to see if they had a tire that fit. They did, but it was about 30 miles back to Marquette.

We put on the spare, put the bad tire inside Speedy, thanked our helpers and it was time to be off to Willey's Tire Shop.

Just before we'd stopped for lunch, we passed Van Riper State Park. It now seemed that it might be a good choice for the night. Sally called the park and there were two sites available the the "Rustic" campground...no hookups, the usual for us anyway. But they did have the all-important showers and dump station. So they headed off to the park while we drove back to Marquette.

The folks at Willey's couldn't have been nicer. I walked into the shop and told the first person I saw about our problem and the call to them earlier. He stopped working on his current repair to help us. After refilling the flat tire, it took a while to find the source of the leak, a hole on the edge of tread on back side of the tire. He took the tire off the rim hoping it could be repaired rather than replaced. That was not to be.

He found a spot inside that looked like a pinhole, but it wasn't in the same place as the outside hole. Pushing in with a probe showed the two holes about four inches apart. The air had gotten between the casing and tread and caused them to separate. Time for a new tire as it was an unrepairable fault. The cause was probably a forceful hit in a pothole—just like one we took on the Mass Pike right after we left home. It took a week and 1500 miles for the tire to come apart.

We fitted a new tire, a Firestone Transforce HT,the same type we last had on Old Speedy, stowed the spare, paid up, thanked them profusely and headed over to the supermarket next door. Since we wouldn't get to the state park before dinner time, we picked up a rotisserie chicken and some salad vegetables...and two six-packs of local craft beers for the two guys that helped us out.

They were staying in a private campground just beyond the state park. We didn't know their names, but Ellen went into the campground office and described them and was pointed in the right direction. We found them and their families. They recognized us and I think they appreciated our thanks...and the beer.

It was off to the state park to find Harry & Sally, our rustic campsite, take warm showers, have dinner and collapse.

Oh, just one more thing...

As we were driving back from Marquette, about halfway to the state park, a yellow dashboard light came on. This is never good. It was the Worn Brakes warning light. So tomorrow we have to find a brake shop, in the middle of a holiday weekend. Will we ever take a cross-country trip without repairs on the road?

Here are some photos of our Pictured Rocks campsite and today's adventure.

Finally, the Travel Details
Twelvemile Beach Campground, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore to Van Ripen State Park via Marquette, Champion, and Marquette again.
Distance 184 miles
Travel Time 12 hrs. 3 min.