Hurricane Creek Trip Report (Including A Tire Change)

Five of us made it out to Hurricane Creek on Saturday for our monthly telescope shiner collection. Creek level was very low, not surprising with our drought. We caught our 40 fish very quickly, and encountered a number of snakes, frogs and salamanders. The excitement of the trip was that a small flap was torn on the sidewall of the front left tire on the way in. Luckily it wasn't losing air as we stared at it on arrival. Even better, we made it out on the four miles of gated road without making it worse, and better still made it all the way back to Huntsville.

The odd part was that the tire gave out just as approached the parking lot at the back of Wilson Hall at UAH; I made a sharp left turn on the road and the tire started hissing. The trip effectively ended as we changed the tire on my truck, which was complicated. One of the lug nuts on my rim was a odd small size, but luckily Valerie's car's jack set had a wrench that turned the nut. And it was a big deal to detach my spare from under the truck. The hole were you stick in a crank rod to release the spare was somewhat stripped and stuck but Kevin was able to wrangle it loose. The good news was that my spare was better than I thought; it was the first time I'd looked closely at it since getting the truck in February. So I hope to get out to my favorite hole-in-the-wal tire shop this afternoon and have a new tire put on my rim. From here out I'm keeping my spare in the payload using a chain to secure it.

We'll get together tomorrow morning and inventory the fish we found.