travel  

Hubby and I went to lunch in town yesterday to use up another Groupon that would expire while he is traveling and had some great food at a Peruvian restaurant.

Of course, when we left and were headed to a store, hubby ran over a giant bolt that must have been wedged in the street corner where we turned out, and the bolt punctured the right rear tire (ruining an almost new tire) then managed to punch clear through the inside of the rim before we could even pull off the street!

 

Then we put on the doughnut spare and it was almost completely flat.  The annoying irony here was that I have been putting a kit together for this car that would cover most any road-side emergency, but haven't put it in the car yet, and never thought to check the air in the spare tire.

We barely had enough air in it to make it to a 7-11 to air up.  But the tire was making a strange scratchy sound even after fully filled, so we had to find a shop open on Saturday that could take a look.  Luckily the nice guy at the shop only charged us $20 to bend and fix the splash guard that also was punched through by the bolt somehow, despite it taking almost an hour to fix.

Because of the size of the bolt, it is doubtful that the nearly new tire will be fixable, and rims are a small fortune to buy.  Luckily we have some money in savings now for troubles like this, and when hubby gets home from travel, we will get it fixed up.  In the mean-time I will keep an eye out on craigslist for a set of rims that will probably be cheaper than buying a single rim new.

The moral of the story could be to swing wide on corners of dubious looking streets, or how helpful it is to have a data-streaming phone that can look up 7-11s and auto-shops on a Saturday.  But really the moral is just to know that fate can kick you in the teeth at the most inconvenient moment... The best you can do is try to be ready for what you can be ready for and hope for the best on everything else.

When was the last time you checked the air in your spare?