Don't tell my mom about this. Oh wait, she's one of my most faithful readers. Oh well. At least this is after the fact. Hi Mom! Yes, I'm all okay. Shwew. It's safe to read on now.
So I was driving from New York to Maine on Sunday. I left New York around 2:30 . . . only an hour and a half later than I had planned but nothing was set in stone. I stopped at the Ikea Store in New Haven, CT for a little break. It wasn't halfway--I'd only been on the road for about an hour--but it was a desired stop. It's an 8+ hour drive from Long Island to Farmington, depending on traffic, so I should definitely be home before midnight and that's not too bad for me. (BTW, I hit very little traffic going through NYC. Shwew!)
Around 9:30pm I was right at the juncture where 495 becomes 95. You don't have to exit or make any lane changes, the road just changes numbers on its own. I'm approaching the city line for Salisbury, Massachusetts when the road becomes incredibly rough. When you drive that much highway through that many states, you expect (and get) a lot of variety in road conditions but this was particularly rough. Then it dawned on me that it might not be the road. I hate that feeling. It was dark, so I couldn't see the road's surface all that well, but it didn't appear particularly different while looking at it in my headlights. I decided to pull over. There was a definite correlation between the timing of the thumps I was hearing and the speed at which I was traveling. But it was weird 'cuz even though it sounded like a flat tire, it didn't feel like a flat tire. There was no wobbling of the car, no pull of the steering wheel, no loss of control. But I pulled over anyway. I got out and walked around the car looking at all 4 tires. They appeared to be fine. I even turned on my little bitty flashlight that's on my keychain (so I can find the keyhole to my apartment door at night). I got back in the car and pulled ever so slowly just a short distance. Yep, There was still a thumping. I stopped again and got out. I wasn't sure what I thought I would see this time that I didn't see last time but I went to check all 4 tires again and there it was. A giant bump. No, more like a humongous bump. Apparently, when I stopped the first time, it was at the top of the tire and by pulling forward a little, I had rotated the tire such that the bump was now at the bottom. I mean, really, when you're looking for a flat, who looks at the top of the tire? I will from now on, but I never had before. And thank goodness it was on the outside because I wouldn't have though to look at the inside of my tires if I had heard thumping.
So I got back in the car and had a nice dilemma to work out. Should I call AAA or use OnStar and my Saturn Roadside Protection Plan? I knew they would be redundant in some settings but AAA is so cheap and I like the maps that I kept it when I bought the Saturn Plan. What I liked about the Saturn plan was that it included free towing to the nearest Saturn dealership if the car was rendered inoperable. Anyway, I decided to try my OnStar. Sure enough, it worked like a charm and in less than the 30 minutes projected, a very nice man from Simmie's Garage in Salisbury, Mass. was putting my spare tire on. He seemed rather flabbergasted at the size of the bump. When he put the bad tire in the trunk, he warned me that if I heard a loud pop while driving home, it was probably the tire blowing out. Wow. I wouldn't think it could do that without any pressure on it but he assured me it was a possibility. He also admonished me not to drive over 60mph and to get it replaced ASAP. "Remember, you don't have a spare now."
I was home by 12:30am. The whole tire incident only took 45 minutes total. Monday afternoon, I carefully drove to Lewiston/Auburn (an hour's drive) to get to a Sullivan Tire Store and have it replaced. I had used them in Old Orchard Beach area once before when I had a slow leak and I really liked them. Sure enough, this store had friendly, helpful staff who seemed very knowledgeable. Two different employees that I spoke with were both quite shocked at the size of my bump. "This is usually a very good brand of tire," the one guy told me. We were thinking that my tire must be the exception (as in a lemon) and then realized that indeed this was a very good tire. Most tires would have exploded with that kind of damage and I would've had a serious blowout. But the last few belted threads held together to keep the tire intact long enough for me to get safely to the side of the road and get the tire changed.
And that's the story of my miracle tire. God takes very good care of me.
(I took these pictures in the parking lot of the tire store before they removed the tire, so you're seeing the inside of my trunk along with the tire.)
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