They claim is that Jacksonville is the largest city in the U.S. - no, not in population, but rather in area. I’ll have to agree. For a while I thought it might be Naples, Florida, since it took forever to get from one place to another.
This morning we left our campsite which was on the southern edge of Jacksonville, then a little over an hour later we finally left the northern environs of the city, and we were driving about 60 mph. It’s big city but it was also pretty city. I like Jacksonville.
But this day would not continue to be a likeable day.
About 14 miles after we crossed the border of Georgia on our way to Savannah, a trucker honked at me as he passed me on I-95, pointing downward. I immediately pulled over, on a large bridge no less, fortunately with a safety lane. I got out of the truck cab, checked to see that both kayaks were still on top, checked the truck and trailer tires on the driver’s side as traffic was zooming by, and everything was okay. I then walked behind the trailer and the generator was still attached, but when I got to the trailer tires on the passenger side, I saw that the front tire was gone – shredded off of the rim.
Fortunately there was no damage to the wheel itself, as it must have happened just seconds before the trucker warned us.
Did I mention it was Africa hot outside?
Well, I had experience changing a tire from my adventure last year, so I got out the tools, got the tire off the ground, and proceeded. Everything worked fine until I tried to get the spare tire off of its mounting rack. One of the bolts was turning blindly. I tried all the tricks I know (about one) to get it loose, but the vise grips didn’t grip, and after fifteen minutes of frustration I gave up and called AAA.
Thank god for cell phones!
AAA promised a rescue truck within 30 minutes. While I was waiting I tried some more and failed some more to get the spare off. I finally gave up and retreated to the truck to await my rescue. I had barely sat down when a local sheriff’s deputy showed up behind me. I explained my predicament to him and together we tried some more. After another 15 minutes with no success, I told him he could leave me here as AAA was on its way.
I put my menagerie of tools away and got back into the truck to await AAA. And once again I had barely sat down when the AAA rescue truck showed up.
I had explained to AAA dispatch that I would need some sort of tool to cut off a bolt, so this driver showed up with an air chisel. After ten minutes of chiseling the spare was off the rack, we finally got it off and replaced the destroyed tire. I thanked the AAA driver after I gave him $30, the chiseling was $25 more than an AAA visit and an extra $5 tip.
I was getting ready to drive the trailer off, I noticed that there was a screw embedded into the tire behind the one I just replaced and I swear I heard air hissing. Oh oh…..
Have no fear, I have a GPS program that can find stores by type, so I just entered ‘tires” into the program and waited for the results. When “antique stores” showed up, I should have known this may not work out just how I had envisioned.
I altered the search and viola! It found a commercial tire store just seven miles up the interstate and three miles east. I knew I could make ten miles on my ailing tire.
When I got to the location, the GPS program announced that I “reached my destination.” But there was nothing anywhere. I drove a little further and the GPS program kept begging me to turn around since I had apparently missed the shop. But there wasn’t a place to turn around, and I was rapidly running out of road.
By the grace of god, the end of the road had a place to turn around in front of a church. I didn’t miss the irony of this.
Then I entered “Wal*Mart” in the GPS, but the nearest one was apparently 30 miles away, further than I trusted my leaking tire. I then chose the second closest tire store which was another eight miles from my current location.
When I got there, there was nothing there, either.
I then put “Firestone” in the GPS search and it was supposedly only another four miles up the road, so off we went again.
On the way I found a “Kingdom Tires” store, pulled in and explained that I was sick and tired of trailer tires and wanted to purchase light truck tires instead. I was informed that they don’t make light truck tires in a 14” size that would be strong enough to support my trailer, and 15” inch tires wouldn’t work either, but that 16” would, but 16” tires wouldn’t fit in the wheel well of my trailer. I was stuck with more 14” trailer tires.
But Kingdom Tires didn’t have the radial tires I wanted, so she called another tire store just down the street, and they had them.
Barnes Tire & Service of New Brunswick, Georgia said they could put on two new tires, replacing the destroyed tire as well as the spare I had used to replace it, plus fix the tire with the screw in it, in about an hour or two at the most.
Since it was well past our lunch hour, we backed the trailer up to an open bay, I then detached the trailer, fired up the generator, turned on the air-conditioning in the trailer, and put the dogs inside while Marianne and I went to have a leisurely lunch.
We returned an hour later and all the work was done. Two-hundred and ten dollars later I had my two new tires and the patched tire was now my spare.
The entire ordeal took about three hours (about as long as it’s taken you to read this). This put a crimp into our plans to have been in Savannah early enough to take a tour of the town before we had to leave for Aiken, South Carolina to visit the last of Marianne’s siblings, her younger sister Janet.
Shortly after getting back on I-95 northbound the clouds were getting ominous and lightening was flashing and thunder was booming. Then the wind picked up. As we crossed a couple of bridges the wind was whipping up so much that the rain, that had begun to fall, was coming up over the bridge from below. The winds were really rocking the trailer so we slowed down to 35 mph and the rain was getting stronger and stronger. I felt we must have just missed a tornado since the temperature dropped from almost 100° to 75° in just minutes. And it was getting darker and darker.
Oh, could this day be any worse?
No.
After about 40 minutes we were back in semi-sunlight, but now Marianne announced that she was getting tired and that she wanted to stop at the KOA just a few miles ahead. It was a Friday night and we hadn’t made any reservations, but our luck had finally changed.
We got a pull-through site and I didn’t even unhook, I just plugged in the electricity and hooked up the water. I then crawled in bed and took a well-deserved nap.
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