POP!!! … flap flap flapflapFlapFlapFLAPFLAPFLAP
This is what I heard at 9:44pm while driving on Highway 60 from Fontana to Moreno Valley last Thursday night. And so began the tire adventure…
At first when I heard the loud pop, I figured it was my water cooler lid blowing off – sometimes the container has problems adjusting to altitude changes. But then my car tail started to wiggle, and I heard a flapping noise from my right rear wheel. Not good. I turned on my hazard lights as the sound got louder and louder, and I slowly merged over one lane, and then navigated across two more lanes of traffic that were coming onto the 60 from Hwy 91. Once I moved all the way to the right shoulder, the flapping noise was unbearably loud and it felt like forever until the next exit, 3rd St. I drove off, hoping for a gas station or something, but no – at 60 and 3rd there is only a business park. I pulled into a parking lot and positioned myself under a street light.
I was supposed to stay with Pastor Harold and Andrea Arevalo in Moreno Valley that night. Thankfully I had Pastor Harold’s number in my phone, and I called him up and said I would be a little late and I was going to call AAA. He would have none of that, since they lived just 10 minutes away, he figured out where I was as I explained where I drove off the 60 and looked at my borrowed GPS system to get cross streets. Pastor Harold came and changed my tire in the parking lot and I followed him back to my house. My tire-changing rescuer! I had never liked the stretch of freeway where 60 and 215 are the same thing, and now I have further reason to feel that way.
totally shredded tire – the tread was wrapped around the axle behind the wheel
On Friday night, I was supposed to do the young adult service in Moreno Valley and drive home to Ventura afterward. When I was getting ready to go to the service, I looked down at my left rear tire, for no particular reason, but saw a bulge in it the size and shape of a hot dog bun. Again, not good. At this point, it was almost 7 and time for the service. By 7:30, though, we all decided to take my car somewhere to change the tire, since I was not about to drive home on a bulging tire with no spare (since the spare was already on my right wheel). So, Pastor Harold called around and found that the WalMart tire place closed at 8. Andrea took me to WalMart, along with our friend Julia, and the guys there put on a new tire on my left wheel. Phew!