Winter Traveling

Years ago when I had a car, I had to learn the hard way that some of my cars needed extra care when doing lots of driving around or just whenever I wanted to go long distances. Few things my ex-husband was able to drill into my head was to always have certain stuff in my car...
Jumper cables
jugs of water
oil
shovel
bags of sand
extra tire
tire changing tools & other tools
chains
blankets
extra shoes
flashlight, whistle. mirror


Now that I don't have my own car, I never give it a second thought to ask whoever I'm with if they are prepared for winter travel. Well I learned yesterday, that I should start asking others.
Last night on the way home, Brenda got a flat tire. It was just getting dark & it was damn cold outside. Enrique gave us a ride home about 8:40pm and when we checked online it was 20-22 degrees out.


As u can see, we got the flat in the middle of nowhere...as this is the view from around the car. It's about 15 1/2 miles from the Park gate. I took the picture when Doris drove us down to get all our groceries that we left in the car.

This is the flat...guess it's also the same tire Brenda drove out here with, 2 1/2 years ago from NY too. So it was also pretty worn and should of been changed awhile ago.

Seeing as most people here like going to Flagstaff often, to get away from the park for fun it is really important to take care of necessary upkeep of the car because Flagstaff is about 90 miles away and its a whole lot of nothingness in between...so its not place or a good time of year to break down.

People in the park wonder why NPS doesn't take care of the roads better in the park...well NPS doesn't want to spend $$$$ if they can get away with it. A couple weeks ago we had a bad 3 car accident on ET hill, because NPS wouldn't put cedar rocks out until AFTER the accident, then they completely covered every inch of the hill. Why didn't they put cedar rocks down before our storm or make sure the hill was safe for travel after the storm....same reason people don't want to use $$$$ for their own travel safety outside of the park.

And if people can only have fun by going to Flagstaff.....money needs to go to the car first!!!!!!!