Oh No! Disaster, 4/4/21

And on Easter Sunday, no less!  Through Albuquerque, past Santa Rosa and Tucumcari, New Mexico and right up to the Texas line, we drove east on I-40, one of the worst roads ever.  That highway beat us to death.  You'd think a major freeway like that would be kept in a better state of repair.  Truck traffic?  We've never seen so many 18-wheelers.

At the Texas line, a car paused beside Jimmy, who was driving at the time, honked and pointed back toward Smartie.  We know to pull over when we see that universal signal, and so we did at the next off ramp.  We were aghast at what we saw (below).  Smartie had no more front left tire -- it was gone!  How long she'd been like that is unknown ... we couldn't tell anything was wrong by looking at the image in our back-up camera. 😢

By the time we "limped" into the nearest tiny town of Adrian, Texas, seven miles away, this is how Smartie looked.  We pulled into the only RV park in the town, and called our lifesaver, AAA.  We were safe at the park.  On Easter Sunday.

8:30 Monday morning, David, the tow truck driver showed up.

He hauled Smartie to a small fix-it shop in the next bigger town, Vega, Texas.  We followed in Tergel.  Bye-bye, Smartie.

I guess it should come as no surprise that the wind was blowing 90 miles an hour here.

Two typical scenes of West Texas, above and below.

The guy at the shop in Vega shook his head when he saw Smartie's condition and said, "nah, we cain't fix it here, you'll have to take 'er to Amarillo."  So, we followed the tow truck the 30+ miles to Amarillo.  Did you know the speed limit thereabouts is 75mph?  That's what the tow truck was doing.  I hate going that fast in Tergel.

The guy at Discount Tire in Amarillo checked Smartie (shaking his head).  As we looked with him, the other three tires all had damage, strips of rubber hanging loose.  What kind of road would do this?  Good grief!  So ... the guy did some magic, called the right people, and had Smartie fixed up THE NEXT DAY!  By the way, Smartie has no spare tire, and the front and rear tires are different sizes.  Now, for a chunk of substantial change, Smartie got four new shoes, and our trip east wasn't unduly inconvenienced.  We continued on our way Tuesday morning.  The wind never stopped blowing.