I only had one small window left, so I painted that in the morning and I was off on my way home already before lunch. I got to Särvsjö (about 20 km from Messlingen) when I heard an ominous sound… stopped the car and found that my right rear tire was flat. Horrified, I kept staring at the wheel and the shock must have shown on my face because a couple of locals passing by asked me if I needed any help. Yes please! I don’t have a spare tire, there’s just a compressor and a bottle with some rubber sealant that’s supposed to fix the puncture, I have no experience of using that stuff. The tire sealant helped but it didn’t fill me with confidence so aimed the side mirror at the wheel so I could keep an eye on it. It’s over 30 km from Särvsjö to Hede, all on a small gravel road with very patchy mobile signal so the worst case scenario was that the tire would go flat in the middle of nowhere without being able to call anyone.
At the cabin right before I left, I did actually check the tires and thought that the right rear tired didn’t look all ok, but it was standing on uneven ground so I dismissed my doubts. My theory is that I already had a slow puncture caused by the insanely rough gravel in Mittådalen where they’re doing roadwork and then just before Särvsjö when I drove over a loose rock, it was the killing blow.
Anyway, I got to Hede without further problems although the tire had deflated a little bit, so I filled in more air. Which made the puncture seal break and air was streaming out again! I was so fortunate to come across a helpful person again who instructed me to buy a tire fix, so we emptied the bottle in the tire and I was back on the road, nervous as ever. I stopped after a while to check the puncture and found that it was still leaking a little bit of air, but I didn’t really have any options but to keep on driving. It’s Sunday and everything is closed, so the only place to call was the road rescue. I decided to leave that as the last option.
I got to Sveg alright but with all the chemicals we had stuffed in the tire, filling more air was not possible (the instructions said, deflate the tire to get rid of the chemicals, then inflate, repeat and rinse). The last experience I had with inflating the tire ended up with blowing up the repairs so I decided, again, to drive as far as the tire would allow me. Which turned out to be all the way home! I was so happy… I will need to call somebody tomorrow to come and pick up the car though because the tire will be flat for sure.
What a vacation it has been. First the blister and achy knee which probably makes my first hike of the summer also my last, then a mishap with my small outdoors stove that left me with molten plastic on my finger, and now finishing off with a flat tire. Can’t tell you what a relief it was to get home and look around in the garden and see that the flowers are doing great (is it just my imagination or are they doing better now that I’ve been gone?) so I grabbed my macro. The moment with the ladybug and the ant lasted all of half a second so I’m lucky I got something that passes for sharp in this web version, the full res picture isn’t quite as impressive but I’ll keep it.
To-do list tomorrow: 1) find a tire shop who have a pick-up service 2) book a time at the doctor for the knee.