Birmingham, Alabama
This morning we were waiting at Camping World when the doors opened to have our rear tire checked out – the inside dually on the left looked soft to me. Camping World didn’t have our size in stock, so they sent us to a tire store some 6 miles away. There a young fella walked around the coach, kicked the tires a bit, and proclaimed everything A-OK.
Well, I felt like a complete fool. I was a Nervous Nelly last night and insisted we stop in Nashville because I thought we had a bad tire.
Many apologies were issued to my forgiving husband and we headed south again. It poured all day. Nasty, stormy weather with me trying to shake off the tire anxiety. And then a couple hundred miles later … the tire blew.
Mother Hubbard.
Happened just as we passed the exit for Birmingham. Right on the overpass. Only it was the right hand dually, not the left one that I had been suspicious about. BLAM! Thumpa Thumpa.
We pulled over immediately, just above a spot on the highway embankment where a tow truck was retrieving a car out of the ditch. An elderly couple had slid off the road in the pouring rain. I flagged down the tow driver and in short order he was examining our shredded tire. Needs to be replaced was the obvious verdict. At a tire store, he said, pointing across the interstate.
Lights flashing, he led us slowly down the wrong way on the highway ramp, blocking oncoming traffic, and right into the Firestone dealer.
After a long wait in the Firestone parking lot, a new $188 tire was installed. By then it was well after dark and the worst of the storm front was bearing down on us with lightening and buckets of rain. So we slid down the road a mile or so on new rubber and pulled into a WalMart parking lot. Most WalMarts permit overnight parking for RVs and truckers, and there was already small enclave gathered in the back lot when we settled in for the night.
This sure has been a lot of fuss just to get somewhere fun!
