Several summers ago my dad and I set off for a backpacking trip in Southwestern Colorado. We spent almost all of the first two days driving to Durango, Colo., where we planned to check out the local access to the San Juan National Forest and see what we could see. When we arrived in Durango, we made a really good name for Arkansans.
We had packed all of our backpacking and exploring essentials, crammed into my dad’s Tacoma. There were fly rods, hiking boots, back packs, a kayak, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, an ice chest and who knows what else stacked in the bed of my Dad’s truck, enclosed by the camper shell.
Did I mention that we also had a full set of large, mud terrain tires mounted on steel rims in the bed of his truck? Since we didn’t want to look like city yuppies cruising into a mountain town driving a four wheel drive with highway tires, and we also didn’t want to run the tread off the aggressive tires on the interstate, we thought it would be smart to take the mud tires with us and get them swapped as soon as we got to Durango. Then we could roam the forest service roads with the added traction of the mud tires and cruise the streets of Durango without looking quite so much like silly tourists.
We pulled into Durango, hit the first tire shop we can find, and got down to business on swapping those tires. We felt like we were minutes away from looking like legitimate locals.
The mechanic tightened the last lug nut and I asked him his advice for a good place to camp that night. We were ready to get into the national forest so we could get camp set for the night and cook some food and I wanted to know the most direct route to the woods.
“Well, pull out of here on to Main Avenue and go several blocks until you come to a big ‘ol tire. Take a left at that big ‘ol tire and keep going. You’ll be on Junction Creek road. It’ll turn into dirt and you’ll hit the national forest boundary several miles later,” the mechanic said.
“Well, ok. I feel right at home here,” I’m thinking to myself. “They give directions by landmarks like ‘big ‘ol tires.’ This is great.”
So, off we went down Main Avenue, mud tires a’ hummin’. My dad and I are smiling and taking in all we can of the area. Next stop, the wild frontier. Just take a left at that “big ‘ol tire” and head up Junction Creek road. Right?
Nearly the next hour was spent driving up and down Main Ave, kind of like that scene in National Lampoons European Vacation when they get stuck on the turnabout. There is no big ‘ol tire anywhere. No tractor tire leaned up against a fence. No skidder tires left sitting on a corner lot. Not even a stack of Mud Kings anywhere in sight. (If you have ever been to Durango, you really know how funny this is. The town is far from “country.”)
Back to the tire shop we go.
“Um, sir, sorry to bother you again, but I can’t find the big ‘ol tire where I’m supposed to take that left turn,” I said.
“Well, it is kind of hard to see. The sign is very faded, but I promise it is there,” replied the mechanic.
“Sign?” I said.
“The sign for the store,” the mechanic said.
“Oops. Ok, thanks again,” I said trying to find a hole to crawl in that will get me out of the shop as quickly as possible.
I get back in my dad’s truck and he asks me where we went wrong.
“The big ‘ol tire is a store,” I said.
There the Tacoma went again, the loud mud tires drawing more attention to us that, by this point, we’d rather not have. Back down Main Avenue.
And yep, there it was. A “Big O Tires” store front on the corner of Main and 25th street, one of the company’s 540-plus locations spread across 21 states, none of which are in Arkansas.
Sean Ruggles is a writer for the Gurdon Times.
Gurdon, Ark. —
