Near Winter Haven, Fla.
Feb. 9, 1926
Yesterday near Haines City, we had four blowouts, the first of our experience. Some time ago, realizing we needed new tires, Bill wired Frank for money, which we received in Orlando, but being anxious to reach Fort Myers where we plan to visit Bill’s mother and her husband, Dr. Strobel, on their houseboat, we took a chance on the old ones--and lost.
Thinking a broken spoke had pierced the tube, Bill patched it, but it soon blew out again. Once more he patched it and once more it blew, all on the back wheel, the hardest to handle because the wheel itself has to be removed and both mudguard and brake loosened.
Although I had walked about a mile to buy patches, patches wouldn’t do, so we had to put on the spare, to get at which all the luggage on the rear end had to be removed, then put back again. A man in a Ford stopped to help. We went only a short distance before wham, we could hardly believe the spare blew out! A new tire was a necessity.
The very beautiful sunset brightened but did not shorten my two and a half mile hike into Winter Haven. Trudging from garage to garage I could find no suitable tires, but I did spy a parked motorcycle with a delivery box in place of a sidecar. A little girl told me the driver was downtown, and I would recognize him immediately because of his red sweater and fat cheeks. Sure enough, I did, and he drove me, riding on top of the delivery box, to still another garage, where again there was no success. A cop, however, in the police station opposite, gave me an old smaller tire with a slow leak, insisting it could be stretched to fit, and volunteered to put it on. So I was officially escorted in a police car back to Bill, who, by the way, had been terribly worried as it was pitch dark and I had been gone more than two and a half hours, during which time he had set up the tent and fixed camp.
Of course the cop’s tire would not fit, but the helpful man in the Ford, after an unsuccessful search for me in town, did learn where two tires could be bought, the cop driving Bill to purchase them and back. People are certainly kind everywhere we go.
Now, after a surprisingly restful night beside the road, we are nearly ready to start--but those old tires cost us a full twenty-four hours. Although still one hundred and twenty miles north of Fort Myers, we hope to reach there today.