A Trip To Play Golf
The Corvette
It was a phone call from PGA Golf Professional Nathan Ollhoff that set the ball rolling. He asked if I wanted to host three members of the University of Minnesota Women’s Golf Team at my Minnesota golf club. Two of them were going to the NCAA Regional Tournament. Of course I would want to do that.
I was in Arizona preparing to return to Minnesota. I had decided to bring two cars home, one a hybrid SUV, while the other was a red 2021 Corvette which had never been in Minnesota. My son Kyle flew to Arizona to make the trip while my wife Sandy would fly back.
“Why don’t you just ship it?” someone asked me.
“Ship it? This car is meant to be driven!” I responded.
The golf game was set up for Wednesday afternoon at 2:00. It’s a comfortable three day, two night trip of about 1750 miles. Thus leaving at 7:00 AM Sunday morning gave us plenty of time to have a mid Tuesday afternoon arrival in Minnesota. It was a cloudless powder blue sky as we headed northeast out of Scottsdale toward Gallup, New Mexico.
Our route was through Telluride, CO where Kyle lived for a winter nearly 20 years ago. I followed in the SUV as Kyle navigated the Corvette up the winding road with stunning scenery, to Telluride’s 8,700 feet. Running next to the road, the San Miguel River moved swiftly from the spring snow melt. White water rafters fought to stay afloat as the water crashed over the rocks below.
It was May 1st but piles of snow were still visible as we started down the mountain Monday morning headed for Lincoln, NE. It’s an exhilarating drive coming down the two lane road winding around hairpin turns as vistas of mountain ranges filled the backdrop. It would be a full day of driving to put us on schedule for a Tuesday afternoon arrival. After three days in the car, I wanted to get to MN in order to practice for my game with the women.
One brief stop to fill the left rear tire with air when a ‘low tire pressure’ light appeared and we were headed across the Rockies on Interstate 70.
We frequently switched vehicles. About 4:00 PM, 25 miles east of Sterling, CO on Interstate 76, found me in the Corvette. It’s a wide open area of the country that always seems to be tumble weed brown. In the left lane I felt as though I hit a bump or ran over something. I glanced in the rear view mirror to see something small and black fly out from under the car while at the same time the car slowed.
I knew immediately I had blown a tire. I got the car over to the shoulder and got out to confirm my fears. It was the same tire I had put air in several hours earlier. As Kyle arrived, cars and semi trucks roared by at 80 MPH blowing up dust and creating a deafening sound. It’s terrifying. All you want to do is get to a safer place.
There is no spare tire in a Corvette. We were 25 miles east of the nearest city. This was going to be a problem.
Ah, but technology came to our rescue. Working his iPhone, Kyle found Scott Rohas at H-R Tire in Sterling. “Putting it on a flatbed could be a problem,” said Scott. “The undercarriage could be damaged in cranking it up on to a truck.” He thought for a moment. “The Corvette has ‘run flat’ tires. You can drive up to 50 miles at 40 miles an hour on the flat tire.”
“I don’t want to drive 35 miles an hour on an interstate for nearly an hour,” I said.
“Ok, about 10 miles east up the freeway is an exit. Go north a couple of miles to a county road that will bring you right back to Sterling,” he responded. “You should get here by 5:30. I’ll keep the store open until you get here. In the meantime, I will order a new tire from a distribution center in Denver. It will be here at 10:00 in the morning.”
It was a harrowing drive up the interstate, trucks racing by at break neck speeds. Anyone of them about to crush the Corvette with an inattentive driver. We made our way back down the county road, carefully over railroad tracks, into Sterling and to the three door garage building with the large green “H-R Tire” sign out front.
“There are about 100 reasons why that tire will not get to Sterling at 10:00 AM,” I said to Kyle by phone as we drove. “I think we should drive back to Denver tonight and pick up the tire ourselves. That way we’ll know it will get here by 10:00. If we can get out of Sterling by 10:30 Tuesday morning we can still get to MN at a reasonable hour Tuesday evening.”
“Sure, you can do that,” Scott said after our arrival. “The distribution center opens at 8:00 AM. I will change the order to ‘will call.’
Shortly we were back in the black Lexus SUV for the two hour trip back to Denver. The plan was to locate the distribution center, find a nearby hotel for the evening, pick up the tire at 8:00 AM the next morning and head back to Sterling.
Google Maps directed us off the Interstate and out into the country side unveiling cattle feedlots the size of which I had never seen. Hundreds of thousands of cattle at several different feeding operations spread out before us. And the smell. Oh the smell.
The tire distribution center was an enormous warehouse, 200,000 sq ft. or more. We drove around the building to locate ‘will call’. There was a door propped open next to a window where we could see a person working.
Kyle jumped out of the car and entered the new concrete block building. I followed, entering as Kyle was explaining our tale of woe. Racks of black tires stood as far as I could see.
“I can pull that tire for you right now,” said the warehouse employee.
In five minutes we were out the door, rolling the wide body Michelin tire to the rear of the SUV and into it for the ride back.
“What a break!” said Kyle. “We can get back to Sterling and be in a hotel room by 10:00, then be at H-R Tire when they open at 7:00 AM.”
“We can be on the road by 7:30. We have about 11 hours left to drive. We can get home by 7:30, with losing an hour.”
We had been driving about 45 minutes through the black night when I glanced down at the gas gauge. “Oh my god, Kyle! We have 25 miles of gas left.” In our excitement to get back to Sterling, I failed to check the gas gauge.
I slowed while Kyle started working on his iPhone to find the nearest gas station. “You’re not going to like this, but I think the best thing we can do is turn around,” he said.
We had more miles back through the empty countryside than gas to get to the nearest gas station. Anxiety pumped through my body, faced with the realization that we may run out of gas.
We were in luck. By driving under 20 MPH the electric motor in our hybrid, largely powered the car. It would take an hour, but were going to make it back to a gas station.
With gas in the tank we were back heading to Sterling, again, and a long awaited hotel room….at midnight.
At 7:00 AM we were at H-R Tire with the tire for the left rear wheel. We sat chatting in the waiting area as Scott’s people worked to install the new tire on the wheel. Our attitude was light and airy as we waited to get the Corvette back on the road. We would be back in Minnesota later in the afternoon.
We were thanking Scott for all his help when his service technician walked up holding the wheel from the Corvette. “I’ve got some bad news. There is a crack in the wheel and it will not hold air. You need a new wheel,” he said.
Apparently while driving on the ‘run flat’ I hit a pot hole or possibly when the tire hit the train tracks, it caused the damage. This could be a serious problem in my attempt to get to Minnesota to play golf.
“Let me see what I can find,” said Scott as he turned to head to his desk and get on the phone.
We sat in the waiting area discussing the options. I wasn’t willing to admit it but my golf game the next day was all but dead. How long would it take to find the exact wheel for a limited edition vehicle? It ran through my mind that it might have to come from a distribution center in a different part of the country. It could take days to get to Sterling, CO. Should Kyle and I drive to Minnesota and I fly back to Colorado when the car was ready?
It took Scott, the 30 year old manager, less than 45 minutes to find our rare wheel. It was in a display at a Chevrolet dealer, Ghent Chevrolet, on the north side of Denver, less than two hours away.
“I told them you would be in to pick it up,” he said. By 8:30 we were back on the road to Denver. And this time we had plenty of gas as H-R Tire has gas pumps out front!
“We’ll be back here at 12:15,” I told Scott.
“That was service way above and beyond,” Kyle commented as we again drove back to Denver to pick up the wheel. “We’ll never see him again after today. All we can do for him is give the store a positive recommendation on Google!”
As projected we were in Denver to pick up the wheel and back in Sterling by 12:15. The cost of the wheel was even discounted as it was on display.
“If we can get on the road by 1:00 this afternoon we can make it home by 1:00 AM,” I said. And I can get a good night’s sleep and be ready for my golf game, I thought but did not mention.
All went smoothly, as we got on the road and made our way to Minnesota. At 12:45 AM we pulled into my driveway in Edina, Minnesota. We were a little the worse for wear, but I was good to go for my golf game later in the day. Golfers go to extremes to make it to a golf game. However this was the furthest I have gone in A Life In Golf.
PS. How did I play? Not very well, but had a great time with the women.
