Written by All of us!

Last night started out as a typical night at the cave. We had a great emergence, got great data, and headed back home early excited for the possibility of watching a movie. That all suddenly changed with a series of loud thuds. At the same time, Steph and Dr. K yelled “tire” and Dr. K brought the car to a stop. We got out to assess the situation: 

We had a pretty severe gash in the side of the tire, and no idea how it happened. Right away, we knew what to do. Dr. Kloepper did what any good professor would do, and instructed us how to change the tire. 


Just kidding—she actually rolled up her sleeves with us and we all got to work on changing the flat. 


Proud of our tire-changing skills, we headed back to the bunkhouse, finally watched that movie, and headed to bed satisfied.

When Dr Kloepper woke for her morning run, however, that mood changed. She noticed two more flats on the car. Since the phone at our bunkhouse was broken, and we had no cell service, she biked to the nearest house (after she finished her run, of course) with a phone to call Enterprise to get everything sorted out. She left a detailed note on the counter explaining the situation and to “stay calm and keep doing data analysis.” She also left post-its everywhere to “see counter.” Cassi’s first thought when seeing the post it that said “see counter” was holy crap what did I do. Whereas Steph’s first thought was “what counter in MATLAB? I didn’t even know we had a counter function!” Little did she know that there was an additional note by the coffee that explained everything until Cassi found it.

About an hour later Dr Kloepper returned and told us to pack a bag. A tow truck was on its way to take us to Truth or Consequences to hopefully get our tires fixed. We weren’t sure if tires would be in stock, so we packed an overnight bag and left Kaipo with plenty of food and water. Two hours (and one Cujo movie later), the tow truck driver arrived and loaded up our batmobile 


We all piled in front for the long ride into town 


We were so fortunate because Walmart had exactly 3 of our tires in stock. We spent the day waiting for the tire to be fixed, but we’re fortunate that it only took one day!

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