The tale of the tire

My kids talked me into going to see the Holiday Lights display on the boardwalk at Virginia Beach. It's about a forty-minute trip over there, and I whined and complained, but eventually agreed. Since it was the last night, there weren't very many cars lined up, and I congratulated myself on an easy, relatively uneventful trip. But as we pulled off the boardwalk onto the road, I heard a distinctive and unpleasant thump-thump-thump sound. I pulled over and checked, and sure enough, my right rear tire looked like this:Pacific Avenue in Virginia Beach is not the greatest area to be stuck in, but fortunately we were in a well-lighted location. We called AAA, and when the guy got there (quite quickly, too), he discovered this lovely big nail in my tire:I obviously wasn't going to find someone to patch my tire at ten p.m., and my van has a compact spare. So I had to drive home (all on interstates) at fifty miles an hour. Fortunately, it was late and there wasn't a lot of traffic. And we made it home with no problems, for which I was quite grateful.

Glad I have AAA. I couldn't have changed that tire on my own. I couldn't even FIND the tire on my own-- it's hidden under the van on the right side, which I never would have figured out in a million years. AAA is totally worth it.