Op GE, Part II

Alright, I said yesterday I'd do another entry today on the ride back from New Orleans. In reality, I could easily do several months worth of stuff about that fateful day, simply because it was so freaking insane. Today simply won't cover it all, but let's get into the beginning.

Sunday morning, we wake up in New Orleans and prepare ourselves for the long ride home. Only two of us, my friend Nick and I, are headed back to Austin, so we take off in a car of our own. I only had to drive for a few minutes before I started to worry about my car. Any time I let go of the steering wheel, the car would veer to the right at a 40 degree angle. So, to stay on the road I had to keep the steering wheel like I was making a continuous hard left turn. In addition to that, the car began to noticeably shake at around 75 mph. Some quick thinking revealed that we had roughly an 800 mile journey in front of us, and we had to go slowly the entire way with me turning the wheel constantly. Bad, but not awful.

Eventually, we make it across the Texas border and stop in Beaumont for gas. I'm concerned about my car here, but not terrified yet. And then I look at my front left tire. A little bit of the tread has frayed and is starting to come off the tire so that the steel belted part is making contact with the road. Not being a mechanical man, I call Nick over to take a look. He gives it a peek and then confidently announces, "That's nothing. I've driven with my tires like that for months." The man has experience here; our steed is dinged, but she'll make it to Austin. With my confidence back up, I got into the car.

And then, maybe 10 miles past the gas station, things got bad. The car began shaking at lower and lower speeds. I remember at 60 mph, it was shimmying so badly, I couldn't see out the rear view mirror. If we'd had some rice in there, the entire vehicle would've sounded like a giant maraca. Right as I'm about to start freaking out, we hear a boom from the front of the car and begin to veer.

I had run over a drifter. Not really. In actuality, the tire that was good for months just a few miles back had unceremoniously exploded on us. We had to get under the vehicle to take a peek.

Site of blow-out? Middle of nowhere. Date of blow-out? Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. Money on passengers? That all depended on how much I could get for my dirty undies. Assuming little, we were out of luck.

The only thing we had going for us was my Triple A card. At the very least, we could get some poor chump out there to do the dirty work of changing the tire, and then maybe we could coast a few miles into the nearest Pep Boys, where surely they'd take credit cards. The plan was so simple that it almost had to fail. More tomorrow.

Posted by Cody at May 31, 2005 7:09 PM