Trip to Canada

This is not what we planned on!!!

Talk about a scary situation! I have NEVER had this happen to me before. There we were driving on the interstate at 70 miles/hour and we hear this loud noise that sounded like you are driving on the edge of the road, and the next thing we know we feel the tire go and we were veering off to the shoulder to a stop. We hop out of the car to see this!!!!! The tire was completely gone! How does that even happen? Well, we didn't know what to do. I took an auto class 10 years ago and learned how to change a tire, but have never had to put that knowledge into action. To be honest, we didn't even know where the spare tire was. It is under the van. Not under the trunk... We were fully loaded for Christmas and in the middle of nowhere. And we had our four kids tucked in the car, worried about what was going on. Sophie was bawling because she thought it meant we would not be able to go to Canada for Christmas. Poor girl. She thought we would have turn around and head back home. While Rich and I were standing in the cold and blowing wind, a stranger stopped and helped out. He was a mechanic by trade and did most of the changing for us, and he directed us to the next town (2 miles away thankfully) and to the closest tire store. He was such a blessing!

And buying the warrenty on the tires is a smart thing to do. $15 up front gave us the option to go to any tire store (if this happens) and replace it with a 100% refund of the cost when we return to home.

I am happy to report that this was the worst day of the trip, even though it was day 1. The rest of the time we were gone was smooth sailing. This took 3 1/2 hours out of our trip, but was welcome when we think of what could have happened in this scary situation. You never realize how thankful you are for tires until one blows!!