After my retirement luncheon on Friday, June 8, Donya and I packed up the fifth wheel RV, whom we had named Livingstone (Livy for short), hitched her to our Ford F350 Super Duty long bed, extended cab diesel truck, whom we called Stanley, and drove out of the East Austin KOA campground that had been our home address for the past three months.
We drove north on the 130 toll road, and shortly after passing the Highway 79 exit (just 22 miles from our starting point) we heard a loud POP. One of the four tires on the fifth wheel had blown, so Donya eased us onto the shoulder of the highway and we got out to inspect the damage. The right front tire was in shreds and had ripped off the fender when it blew. Donya saw the fender lying several yards away, picked it up and put it into the truck bed. A passer-by stopped to help and suggested that we follow him to the next exit so that we could park in a safer area. We parked in a wide area near the toll booth and then called roadside assistance that came with our tire warranty. Roadside Assistance for the 130 Toll Road also stopped and put orange cones behind the RV. About an hour later, a man in a tow truck arrived, removed the damaged tire and put on the spare. He put the shredded tire in the back of the truck because the rim wasn’t damaged and we would need to get it repaired.
100 miles later, we were just outside of Llano TX when we heard another POP. This time the left front tire had blown, but it did more damage than the first blowout – it ripped off the left fender and damaged the middle jack and motor. We placed another call to roadside assistance, but since we didn’t have a spare it took a very long time until they found a tire shop that had our tire size (or close to it). Five hours after the blowout, a man arrived from Georgetown and put on a new tire, but it was slightly smaller than the other tires. He assured us that this wouldn’t create any problems, but suggested that we use it as a spare when we could get the tire replaced.
By now it was 1:00 am, so we didn’t get to our first campground in San Angelo until 4:30 am. We were so tired, that we just plugged in the power cord, turned on the A/C and crawled into my bed. Donya’s bedroom is not accessible unless the slides are out, and since we hadn’t unhitched, we weren’t sure if we could extend them. We got up at 8:30 am, and even though we were still tired, we decided to rally and head to our next destination, Carlsbad NM so that we could keep to our schedule. The campground manager came over to check on us, and after telling him about the blowouts, he suggested that we get 14-ply tires rather than the 10-ply tires that came with the RV. We asked him what was causing the blowouts, and he thought it was a combination of the heat (it had been in the 100’s since we left Austin), our speed and possibly the weight of our RV.
We continued our journey, not exceeding 60 mph, and prayed that we wouldn’t have any more incidences. Well, our prayers were not answered. Just outside of Andrews, TX the third tire blew. This time we called Good Sam Roadside Assistance because we had exhausted the number of claims that we could submit in a 7-day period with the tire warranty company. A very nice man with missing teeth arrived with two new tires – he changed the blown tire and put a tire on the spare rim. We did a high-five when we finally crossed into New Mexico, leaving Texas behind us.