Trailer Woes (Florida Boating, Post 4)

Tuesday, February 2

We slept fine at the truck stop and started out in good spirits today. The first section of the drive was through more of endless west Texas. I thought it was very ugly. Flat and brown.

Eventually small juniper bushes appeared, which were much more scenic. I never realized I was such a fan of juniper! After awhile the juniper became interspersed with scattered scrub oak and it started to look like what I think of when I picture Texas – rolling grassy hills with oak trees.

I was in the midst of texting Monica, and Serenity, and one of my client’s moms (all separately), when John’s phone and my phone both started ringing at the same time (caller ID “spam risk”). We had two phones ringing and multiple texts binging when suddenly a truck horn sounded. John started to pull over, saying, “There’s a problem.” Wha? What is going on? Absolutely nothing had been going on and suddenly far too much was going on. Turns out we had completely blown a trailer tire.

We hadn’t even felt it, so a trucker had to alert us. By then it was shredded and we had ruined the rim.

John had a spare and everything he needed to get it changed.

It took awhile for John to get it changed, because with the tire essentially gone, the trailer was too low for him to fit his jack under it properly. He had to start off the asphalt and slowly wedge the trailer a bit higher and a bit higher with bricks until it was high enough to accurately position his jack on the asphalt.

You may be wondering why John happened to have bricks. I have no idea. He may have been carrying them to use as wheel chocks. John always has handy bits of wire and rope and bolts and things, but bricks? Like the handy-mechanical version of Mary Poppins. I can just imagine us as we’re pulling out of our driveway at the start of our trip, “Oh honey, did you remember to bring the bricks?” You never know when you might need bricks.

I found it stressful standing by the freeway with the traffic wizzing by at 80 mph and John’s head under the trailer. We were fairly far away from the driving lanes, but I felt very vulnerable and just couldn’t stop imagining the worst.

At least it was the right side wheel so John wasn’t laying on the ground literally next to traffic. And at least the weather was beautiful and we had a wide, grassy shoulder. And at least it was broad daylight! It would have been so much more dangerous after dark. 

Often the cars and trucks would move over into the lefthand lane, but when they came by in a big pack, they couldn’t.

The van would rock every time the trucks went by, so I was more comfortable standing outside. A friend of mine recently mentioned that I should include more selfies in my posts, so here you go:

Maybe she didn’t mean one of me looking worried and stressed by the side of the freeway with a disabled boat trailer!

We finally got underway and spent the next hour calling several tire shops in western Houston before we were able to find one that could sell us two new tires with wheels, which they said they could have ready by the next morning. We ordered our new tires and continued on our way towards Houston.

We had made it about two more hours toward Houston when the OTHER trailer tire blew. We pulled over and had no idea what to do next. We were in the middle of nowhere, still two hours away from Houston. We only carry one spare and we had just used it on the first blown tire!

We’ve been AAA members for decades (literally) and we never, ever use the coverage. It’s fancy expensive coverage for RV’ers so we gave them a call. The customer service agent was quite friendly, but when the tow truck driver called us back he apologized and said, no, he couldn’t tow a boat. Nor could he bring us the spare tire we needed.

However, he did give us the number for a local repair shop and we called them. Thankfully they were able to come out and bring us a spare (at great expense, of course). Our only other option would have been to unhook and leave the boat and trailer by the side of the freeway while we drove into Houston looking for a spare trailer tire. 

I didn’t take any pictures of our second tire disaster. I was feeling grumpy. I just sat in the van as the trucks wizzed by, while we waited for the local repair shop to bring us a new spare.

That night we finally made it to Monica’s house. We spoke to her briefly in her front yard, and then we slept in our van on the street in front of her house. We didn’t want to stay in her house and inadvertently expose her to covid. The likelihood that we would be infected is very low, as careful as we are. But Monica turned 80 last month and has not been able to get a vaccine yet, so we just want to be very careful with her safety. 

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