when the 4X4 road wins

Other applicable titles for this entry:

• Two spares are better than one.
• The third tire's a charm.
• A Grand Cherokee tire is a Cherokee tire.
  
• Nederland. Some days are better than others.
• forest service road #505: 1. My '98 Jeep Cherokee, aka El Jefe aka Jasper the Jeep: 0.
  

The tentative goal of the day was to get to/near Arapaho Glacier, which I see out my apartment front door. After checking the map (no, not just the Atlas... the real local map) and reading about Caribou Townsite, Arapaho Glacier Trail, etc, we left Boulder for Nederland. We drove through Nederland and continued to Eldora, finding National Forest Service Road #505, which leads to the abandoned silver mining area known as Caribou and ultimately Arapaho Glacier Trail.

At this point I'd rather not discuss much about 505 except that it's more of a hiking trail than a 4X4 road, and the wise decision would have been to turn around when it felt like it was time to turn around (or for the forest service to leave the gate closed until they actually made the road drivable for the summer, but I'll take the blame for not listening to my conscience). The bad news is that a pyramid shaped rock jabbed right through my front left tire. The good news is that we didn't make it far on 505, and could see houses for most of the descent. The other bad news is that immediately after putting on the donut, the donut popped. The funny news is that the donut is now worthless, but ultimately served its purpose in getting us down the mountain (thanks for taking one for the team, 9 yr old donut tire!). I didn't hold out much hope for the donut, but thought it would at least go 10 feet without deflating. The last bad news (adding insult to injury here) is that my rear view mirror shook loose and fell off on this drive.

[...selectively skipping over me freaking out and inching our way back down the mountain to Eldora...]

I had my bike in the back of the Jeep with plenty of water, granola, helmet, etc, but was a bit apprehensive about the 20 mile ride down to Boulder, even though gravity would be doing all the work. Instead, Ryan decided to abandon the Jeep and walk with me to Nederland. Just shy of Nederland we got a ride to the Park 'n' Ride from a very nice volunteer fireman who recommended the nearly-new Wild Mountain Smokehouse and Brewery. [side note: I would like to add "liquid funds" to the list of camping essentials, because neither of us had any cash, so if we did not have RTD mass-transit passes provided by our employers we would have been SOL on getting a bus ride back to Boulder (I would have inevitably blown a bike tire as well). Also, kudos to RTD for having bike racks on their buses.] We took the bus from Nederland down Boulder Canyon to my apartment (for free) and drove Ryan's Jeep back to rescue mine.

Check out what great shape the donut is in!

I guess I'm glad I had the tent in the back, but wish I didn't have the tire in there too...
3rd tire, plus rear view comedy...

In a beautiful twist of fate, Ryan's Grand Cherokee spare tire fit my Cherokee. With all 4 wheels safely on pavement, we decided to heed fireman dude's advice about Wild Mountain Smokehouse and Brewery before the 4th of July fireworks in Nederland. The beer, food and atmosphere was great (although $9 is a bit steep for the pan-seered tuna appetizer) and we came away with two new goals; Ryan's new goal is to get a job in Boulder and live in Nederland, and our collective new goal (this has come up before but was reaffirmed tonight) is to own a microbrewery restaurant in a setting such as Nederland. The fireworks and rowdy hippies (God bless mountain towns where cell phones don't work, heat comes from wood-burning fires, and dreadlocks are as common as dogs) brought a stress-free conclusion to the day. Today was not the worst day of my life... actually somewhat comical in hindsight..., but the two deflated tires does indicate I missed the turn for Easy Street this weekend. If you include the allergic attack to whatever caused my cheeks, lips and eyes to swell after the Thai food and bike ride on Thursday, then I am hoping next week is a notch above this one.

closing argument: The '98 Wrangler and Grand Cherokee come with a full spare. Is the Cherokee the soccer mom SUV of the '98 Jeep line? That makes me mad, because I have always thought my Jeep was very functional. I pick up my real spare (w/ tire) to replace the donut for $20 from a dude in Golden tomorrow after I get the popped tire fixed/replaced (thanks craigslist). Here's hoping I don't run over a nail on the way down to Golden.