Our First Adventure

Well . . . . we have a history of "adventures." I really was not expecting this trip to be an exception.

Just outside the city limits of Odessa, we heard a loud pop, and then the unmistakable sound of tread thumping against the underside of the RV. By the time we pulled over, the thumping had stopped. A perusal of the tires did not reveal a problem. So . . . . we moved up a little - and after a few seconds the thumping started again. This inspection revealed a tire stripped of its thread. However, it was one of a pair of tires on each back axle - on the inside . . . . Now, if one must lose a tire - how much more best case can you get -a redundant tire, total control of the car, and the capability to drive yourself to get it changed. The later is important as it is not recommended to change RV tires yourself.

We pulled out our handy dandy internet capable cell phones and looked up the location of truck tire places in Odessa. But we saw a Western Auto in route. Now I have not seen many Western Auto stores recently. This one looked like it had big truck bays. I went in. The store was pretty empty. Two men were behind the counter. I go over, tell them about our blown tire, and ask if they have RV truck tires. They ask me what size. Now that is a reasonable question . . . . and yes, I probably should have looked at the tire size BEFORE I went into the store. But in my experience, at tire stores, they usually come out and check out the tire and "wait" on you. Now, because I know that the founder of Western Auto is also the founder of Pepperdine Univeristy, part of me wanted to buy my tires there. But part of me deplores the disappearance of sales people that are helpful. We ended up buying six tires - six truck tires. But not at Western Auto.

At the next place, they were more than willing to wait on us, noticing immediately that our front tire had a major crack (reinforcing my belief that all tires should be replaced.) However, they only had five tires . . . .

Third stop, the one I had originally chosen from the Yahoo yellow pages, had six matching tires, cheerfully waited on us, and we are now on our way.

However, this story would be incomplete without a mention of God's provision and protection here. The blowout occurred within a few miles of where the tires could be purchased. We were able to drive to get the tires replaced rather than calling AAA. But first and foremost, it was the rear tire that blew - not the front tire. We thought back to when we had last purchased tires - turns out it was almost four years ago, and probably 40,000 to 50,000 miles back. Whiile the tread on the tires was still good, RV tires age. I feel very protected, and very grateful that we did not have the tire problems while crossing the vast areas of West Texas where there are not tire stores nearby and where we did not have to wait for the AAA tow truck people to come and rescue us. And we did not have a tire failure accident losing control of our vehicle.

Yes . . . God IS good!