Austin, Texas

Traveled 168 miles from Huntsville, Texas

---

One of my worst fears happened on my way down here... I had a tire blowout.

I was about an hour outside Austin when I heard a loud bang and saw debris flying out of the passenger side mirror. Luckily I immediately found a pull-out and was able to get off the highway and see what happened. The rear passenger-side tire had blown out and damaged a lot of the paneling around the wheel well. It also blew off the drain valve for the fresh water tank, so my whole water tank dumped out. I had a spare, so I got the trailer up on some blocks and was able to change out the tire. Now when I'm in Austin I'm going to have to look into getting a new tire and also getting the damaged parts on my RV fixed.

This experience was a setback, but it could have been a lot worse. For example, I was really happy that I wasn't driving on one of the massive bridges in New Orleans when this happened. It happened in the early afternoon when I had plenty of time to get where I was going, and in a place where I had space to pull over and work on the tire without being right in heavy traffic. So I was thankful for that. It was also a learning experience for me. My best guess is that I ran over a nail or punctured the tire somehow and as I was driving the decrease in pressure caused the tire to explode. I check my tire pressure before every trip, so that's the only explanation I can think of. This definitely made me realize I need to get a Tire Pressure Management Sytem though, so that's the next thing on my list, after getting all my repairs done.

I did end up making it to Austin in one piece and now I have to get to work getting everything fixed. It looks like this is where I'm going to be for the holidays.