I had a surprisingly good sleep thanks to the plan that I’d made last night to tackle my car trouble. I delayed getting out of bed though, a little apprehensive of what was to come. Gary, the camphost informed me that there was a group coming in to occupy the group site, but that I could have the campsite right across the road from where I was, so that would be manageable if we got a group of people together to push the Astro up the small hill. But first, breakfast with Randy and Nancy.

I put my tent down, then joined them at their picnic table with my cereal while they dug into hot oats. I also introduced them to vegemite, but they only needed to smell the jar, instead of eating any. I was so happy to have met this couple. I hope I can visit them in Minnesota where they farm their own Maple syrup, the trees on their property having taps in them as we spoke. Andy, from the nearby camp was at the van looking for me, his group, who had vacated my new camp site, were ready to push. The team gathered, there were about six people ready to push. When I got in, I thought I might as well try it and lo and behold, Astro starting first time! Everyone rejoiced, including me, but the joy was closely followed by confusion. The pushing team was dismissed and I said goodbye to Andy.

I left the van running while I gathered my last remaining things, the van still in a complete shemozzle with stuff spread everywhere, but good enough to drive to the closest O’Reilly’s. We all hung around a bit talking and I met Teri and Keith, more semi-retired travellers who get on their road bikes to do touring as often as they can. I’m hoping I can meet up with them and ride in Sedona in a few weeks. Information was exchanged and we went our separate ways.

I gingerly drove the Astro out of the park, paying close attention to every noise of the engine, made easier by the fact that the tunnel cover wasn’t completely on so there was air and noise coming through the front firewall. I had no issue driving back onto the main highway, through Wilcox then on to Tucson. I was heading to Tucson anyway, but just got there a little faster than I’d intended. I found an O’Reilly’s which had a nice spot out the back to get to work and that’s exactly what I did. Even though she was running fine, I couldn’t live with a car that may not start at any given time.

There were twelve things on my list that I’d made the night before. I stopped at number four. The problem was with the Exhaust Gas Recirculation Valve. This is something I’d never even heard of before, but I eventually found the thing sitting at the intake manifold. I couldn’t quite understand what the manual was telling me about testing it’s function, so I went inside the O’Reilly’s to ask if they had one so I could see it not attached to the engine. Unfortunately, they didn’t have on in stock, but the man I spoke to knew his shit so with the diagram he had, he explained the basic principle. When I took mine off and pressed on the valve, sure enough, the thing stuck open. Problem found. I took the unit back in and showed it proudly to my helper who agreed that this was the source of my problem and directed me to the nearest O’Reilly’s that had one in stock. I love these guys.

I managed to shake the thing to get the valve to close again, re-installed it and off I went. Half an hour later, I had a new EGR valve in my hot little hands (at the cost of $170, ouch) and after a quick lunch, I finished off the job while I had a good catch-up with Jon, particularly about how I’d used the principles from “Zen and the art…” to put me in a good mindset for my mechanical work.

Once I was all finished, I finally got to talk to Kevin and hear all about his struggles with what had been a simple knee infection but turned into so much more. Thankfully, he was nearly recovered and he planned to fly in the next few days, so I allowed myself to get suitably excited that I would in fact be seeing my friend in the next few days.

The car work had taken most of the day, so any activities were out, but I had a little productivity left in me yet. I found a bike shop in order to get myself some new tubes and wipe the slate clean of all my past flats and issues. As I walked in, the mechanic was doing a tube repair and he was putting a bottle of stuff into the tube. When I asked why, he told me it was the sealant used for tubeless tires, but it works great in tubes too. Woo hoo, give me some of that! I walked out with some good advice about the trails in the area, four tubes and two bottles of sealant stuff. No more cactus punctures for me!

Next, I found camp on the west side of Tucson since there was a big network of trails in the mountains out there and I was on for a big day of riding tomorrow. I suffered a bit of big city traffic as I spoke to Dad about the recent mechanicals, eventually ending up on BLM land right by the highway where there were numerous RVs dotted amongst the cactus bushes. Mountains in the background, sun setting, I was a happy camper. I had a hot shower while the sun was still up and proceeded to have myself a very relaxing evening.