Janet and I have had an inauspicious start to our travels this year. I am hoping that much like last year we get the bad stuff out of the way right off the bat and have smoother sailing the rest of the way. We left Alpine, CA on Saturday, Feb 25th., about 12 noon and planned on driving only 150 miles to Yuma AZ, so we figured we wouldn't need to leave too early. We were driving down I-8 listening to some old Doobie Bros (Rockin' Down the Highway!) and 69 miles down the road something caught my attention in my side-view mirror. I took a longer look and noticed smoke pouring out of the side of the trailer. I immediately pulled over and found that our left front tire was completely shredded. One of the problems with pulling a trailer is that you are so far removed from what is going on behind you, that you don't notice things like your tire blowing out until you are littering the freeway with rubber and sending a plume of smoke behind you to the delight of everyone following your rig.
Fortunately we have road side assistance, unfortunately we have road side assistance through Camping World. We went through 3 different people, but did finally get someone who was able to help and he dispatched a tow vehicle to us to replace the tire with our spare. Three hours later we had our spare on and were able to continue down the road. Three hours is an eternity while stranded on I-8 near El Centro. For those who do not know the area, it is essentially a waste land of arid soil, arid mountains and dust. They do some farming out there, but not sure what type of crop grows in this inhospitable land. Thank goodness it was not summer as the temps would have been in the 100's I'm sure. Amazingly, not one California Highway Patrol went by in the 3 hours we were stranded, although the Border Patrol cruised by a couple of times. Guess you can speed all you want as long as you are not an illegal alien.
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| View from our truck while waiting for assistance |
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