"I feel like I need an adventure."

Yesterday, as Sean and I were getting ready to head out to run our usual Monday morning errands, I said to Sean, "I need an adventure!"

Sean laughed and told me to get real.

But as we turned onto a street where we could get a good look at the nearby volcanoes, we saw that it was a gorgeous, crisp, clear day.

So I tried again..."Sean," I said. "I think you need to take pictures of that, let's skip out on all our other responsibilities and go! I'll come with you."

Well, obviously, I know Sean's weak spot. He's usually all responsible and dependable and whatnot but mention a good photo op and he's all mush. So, we turned around, went by the house, got the camera and headed out for our adventure on the Piglet.

We headed up to Ketep Pass, where we could get a good view of Merbabu and Merapi, plus some other mountains and volcanoes we don't know the name of. It was breathtaking up there. I found it hard to believe that Merapi was the same volcano that was causing all that destruction a few months ago, but as we got closer, we could see where the lahares and ash had come down.

After a tour of a little museum and some coffee (I love this stuff), we decided we'd better head back home and face the day's responsibilities...like homework and school and kids getting out of preschool.

We were rollin' along when suddenly - we had a flat tire! Oh, no. We were in the middle of a forest on the side of a busy road, in a ravine (so either way we were going to have to hike). We had just a passed a town but we couldn't remember how far back that was and we didn't know what was up ahead around the corner.

We stood on the side of the road for a while, sending texts to make sure somebody could pick up the girls and scratching our heads trying to decide which way to start hiking. Finally, somebody took pity on us and turned around to tell us that there was a tambal ban (motorbike tire fixer-upper) just a couple hundred meters up the road! Phew! Thank goodness we live in a country where motorbike flats are a common occurrence and there is usually a place to have it fixed every few hundred meters.

So, Sean pushed the scooter up the hill and around the corner and I followed behind.

When we got to the tambal ban, we found it empty. A bunch of older ladies came up asking us what we needed, if there was a guy at the shop to help, and a lot more...in Javanese! Some of them didn't know one word of Indonesian but we eventually figured out that the guy was eating and that he'd be back soon.

Finally, the tire guy came and we stood around while he fixed our tire. It was awkward - people kept showing up to watch us watch our scooter getting fixed. It was if somebody had sent an urgent "come see the bules" (bules is Indonesian for gringos, or something like that) text out to all the locals. Turns out, our spectators were really nice and Sean, as usual, struck up a friendly conversation with them. Thank goodness the younger generations know Indonesian!

Our tire was fixed within 20 minutes. We paid the hefty sum of around 50 cents and went on our way again...noting every tambal ban we passed just in case our tire blew again. We made it home without incident right at noon. Phew! I got my "adventure" for that day!

Sean will share the pretty scenery photos so I'll just share these ones that Sean took while we waited for our tire to be fixed...

Does your local tire shop look anything like this?

Waiting patiently.

This is the first monkey I've seen in Indonesia. (Obviously, I'm not in the right places.) This one was tied up next to the tire shop in somebody's front yard. She provided us with some entertainment while we watched. Have you ever seen a monkey play with a plastic bag? Hilarious!