Flat Tire Feast
By John Luthens
When it comes to lighting the charcoal heap beneath the grill of outdoor adventure, tossing a flat tire onto the blaze always manages to ratchet up the heat until it settles exactly upon the temperature of the dish that the adventure chef is attempting to pull off. The coals may simmer into a gentle soup or boil into a tasty camp stew. Or they could, if lighted with wild abandon and proper recklessness, turn into a flaming marshmallow that gets hot enough to sear the finish off of the finest crafted tire iron.
Of course, like any culinary attempt, preparing a proper flat-tire buffet takes practice, dedication, and a stockpile of ingredients: ample preparation, impeccable timing, artistic presentation and, most importantly, a healthy sprinkle of carefree negligence. Stirred together and seasoned with suspect rubber, these components are guaranteed to whet the appetite of even the finickiest flat-tire adventurer.
Myself, I prefer my flat-tire dishes well done. Middle of winter, forty-degrees below zero on an abandoned logging road, for instance, or along a tangled trail into a trout swamp that time forgot, with darkness coming on and mist rising from the water like evil wraiths. I’ve brewed epic cookouts and had epic campouts too, depending on how far I had to hike for help and how much camping equipment was stuffed into the hidey hole where the spare tire was supposed to be.
That being said, and in the interest of helping out in the kitchen of beginning flat-tire adventurers everywhere, I’m prepared to share one of my finest flat-tire recipes. I daresay that even the great Gordon Ramsey, himself, would be hard pressed to find a flaw in this masterpiece of burnt rubber, although I’d wager my best fly-rod and a fresh fried trout that he would have loads to say about the sanity of the particular adventurer…
It began simmering mildly enough when our crew piled in the family car and embarked on a seven-hour cruise northward from our home in southeastern Wisconsin. The road sang beneath the carriage and the late-summer landscape rolled like a golden carpet beneath our wheels. We’d packed enough snacks to feed a small army, refusing to hit the brakes until we’d sped far enough up the northern ladder to dip our toes in the crashing waves of Lake Superior in the furthest reaches of Douglas County.
There were no flat-tire hijinks to be found along the way and, even if there had been a blow out, in no way, shape or form would it have constituted a flat-tire adventure. There was far too much laughing and wholesome family camaraderie, way too much food in the car, and not enough deserted roads barring our path. What possible fun could a flat tire adventure entail if it hasn’t been seasoned with ample dashes of solitude, starvation, and R-rated language?
Furthermore, the entire family had cellular contraptions glued to their fingers, self-contained GPS units that would have dialed for help by themselves at the first hint of trouble. I wouldn’t have been surprised if the fancy gizmos summoned robots who could change a flat tire in seconds flat and offer cooling drinks to the stranded onlookers. Help is a four-letter word when it comes to cooking up a proper flat-tire adventure. It is a non-technological entity that needs to be hard earned, and it follows without saying that the harder earned it is, the hotter the adventure becomes.
After arriving in this ho-hum, non-eventful manner, the family spent a quiet week at our cabin in Douglas County, with just the right amount of swimming, trout fishing, and wild blueberry picking thrown in to make for a picture-perfect vacation. We even topped it off with a scenic canoe trip down the majestic Bois Brule River, lighting a campfire, roasting s’mores, and toasting the tail of summer as the northern stars twinkled above. It was deliciously tranquil. A purge for the soul. If hadn’t stumbled upon the makings of a good-old-fashioned, flat-tire adventure in the nick of time, chances are good that I would have ended up the summer with nothing to show for it but jolly memories and a belly full of wild blueberries.
I discovered the main ingredient shelved comfortably beneath the red-pine shadows on a graveled drive, a stalwart looking bite of steel from the tribe know as Jeep. The faded for-sale sign was an appetizer that beckoned me like a moth to an open flame, and the aroma wafting from the vehicle’s body smacked of excellence, a fact that the owner confirmed and attributed to the preservative characteristics of the three-foot high snowbanks that had nestled the thing in place for the majority of the previous winter.
The price on the menu seemed fair. And as an added treat, I was able to ship the finickier members of our crew home in the safety of the family car while I tried out my new purchase and had one last fling on the trout waters of Douglas County. It was almost as if life, itself, had fastened to my apron strings and was applauding me for my culinary creativity.
Attending to the final fishing rights of summer, the Jeep was stalwart and steady. I wasn’t overly concerned that the front end shimmied a bit at higher speeds and the tires were balder than grandpa’s head. The important thing was that I caught big brown trout beneath the alders of the deepest swamps and rolled back out in one piece. I was itching to drive her home, fix her up, and have a boon companion worthy of my connoisseur’s taste for automotive adventure.
Two days later, on a Saturday afternoon, I finally spun the wheels of fortune and headed back home. The wheels bounced merrily over the road cracks, with only the occasional squeal from the brake pads and the grinding of rotors to drown out the really rough patches. Fortunately, the radio worked perfectly, and I discovered that the noises weren’t overly annoying when I turned it up to the proper decibel level. I nearly didn’t hear the low tire pressure alarm when it dinged to life on the dashboard. It sounded like the timer on an oven. My flat-tire feast was cooking good.
The air temperature was breathing its last gasps of 90-degree summer and the relative humidity was hovering between bath water and downright unbearable. Beneath the searing farmland sky of north central Wisconsin, somewhere along the border of Barron and Chippewa County, I found myself limping along the shoulder in a Bermuda Triangle of cornfields that technology and time seemed to have forgotten about. It was remote. It was beauty incarnate. It was shaping up to be a glorious meal.
I was weighing the merits of veering off into a hayfield to assess the situation when a wayside appeared like a mirage over the rise and beckoned me in. I’m certainly no mechanic, but I quickly diagnosed that the front tire was indeed low on air. I watched it sigh and settle into the balmy afternoon, finally giving up the ghost completely and going totally bust. Dinner was served.
The wayside was nearly deserted. I crossed my fingers and prayed my new purchase had come with a spare tire, a tire iron, and a jack, which fortunately it did. Less fortunate was the fact that a winter’s worth of snowbanks had rusted the lug nuts on the tires into unrecognizable lumps of metal. And perhaps, less fortunate of all, I discovered that I’d left my phone behind in Douglas County.
Struggling to break the tire loose, I resorted to every trick in my recipe book. I danced on the tire iron like I’d been stung by a swarm of hornets. I cut a sapling from the wayside woodlot and used it as a pry bar, dancing on that till it split and shot my leg full of splinters. I even tried lubricating the lug nuts with a shot of fly-floatant oil that I found in the pocket of my fishing vest before flagging down a trucker and asking him to no avail if he had a cheater bar or a bigger tire iron. A thunderstorm danced distantly across the fields, but otherwise, the only sounds echoing in the wayside were me sweating and swearing and banging on a flat tire. On the bright side, the majority of the rain missed me. That might have been a bit much to swallow for even the heartiest of burnt-rubber appetites.
An elderly man in a rusted pickup truck finally broke the silence of the wayside, pulling into the stall next to me and unleashing two spaniel puppies who were kenneled in the truck bed. He pulled out a milk crate, plopped down with a paperback book and a sandwich, and proceeded to munch, read, and watch his puppies chew on my home-cut pry pole and cavort in circles around my workstation. I couldn’t in my wildest imagination cook this up. Truth, it seems, is harder to stomach than fiction.
It took me two hours to loosen the lug nuts – all of them but one, that is. The last one was as stubborn as a rising trout who refuses every offering in the fly book, and when I finally gave up, the stripped-out and twisted piece of threaded steel resembled a lug nut in only the most abstract sense of the word. Sunlight was fading fast, and I considered pulling out my tent and sleeping bag and regrouping my composure through an impromptu campout, but I thought the commotion would only insight the hyperactive puppies, and I was certain that the remaining lug nut wouldn’t feel any better in the morning.
I was drenched in sweat and blood and wood-splinters and unsteady on my feet. My flat-tire picnic was stuffing me to the gizzards and was on the verge of turning into a smorgasbord from hell when a father and his daughter benevolently pulled up, rolled the dice in hopes that I wasn’t a serial killer, and offered me a ride to the next town. The old man, his puppies, and his book, were still enshrined around the milk crate and watching as we drove into the sunset. I never did ask where they were bound, what the puppies’ names were, or what on earth he was reading.
Like the aftermath of any proper flat-tire feast, the only thing left was to clean up the dishes. I checked in to a local motel, which was very reasonably priced, I might add. Much more reasonably priced than the all-night towing company I rousted out of bed to torch off the remaining lug nut, put on the spare, and haul my jeep to the motel parking lot.
Luckily, there was a tire-repair shop in town but, being that it was now in the midst of a full-blown weekend, it didn’t open till Monday morning. I cleansed my palate with coffee, soggy sandwiches, and potato chips from a gas station across the way while exploring the vibrant culture and charm that can only be found in small-town Wisconsin on a sleepy Sunday. The adventures that I had whilst waiting for the repair shot to open are too numerous to mention and would easily take up another entire sentence to recount.
Obviously, I wouldn’t be writing this if I hadn’t gorged myself across the state and eventually gotten home in one piece, but I do feel it fitting to offer a final word of cation. While the above flat-tire recipe is totally organic, not to mention possessing the wonderful side effect of trimming any excess fat from your bank account, it is not recommended for those afflicted with allergies to burnt rubber, twisted lug-nuts, wood splinters, or the slobber of spaniel puppies. Trust me, the side effects of an undercooked flat tire adventure are liable to give you the cold sweats and a bellyache for weeks afterward!
John Luthens is a freelance writer and photographer from Grafton, Wisconsin. His first novel, Taconite Creek, is available on Amazon or at www.cablepublishing.com., and his upcoming collection of stories, Writing Wild: The Tales and Trails of a Wisconsin Outdoor Journalist, will be available from Cable Publishing later this autumn.