So I got the motel in Tennessee and camped out for the night. I thought for sure I could get an early start and make some good progress the next day. Not so...
About an hour out of the town I stayed in, just past the "Bucksnort Rd." exit I heard a noise from behind me and looked in the rear view mirror to see the tow dolly tire was smoking. Nice! I pulled right over but before I could get to the side of the road the tire came totally unglued! It was my first blowout ever. It also blew the light off the fender in the process.
I called Uhaul and they put me on a three way call with the closest Uhaul account service station, which was 45 minutes away. He was a nice gentleman but I had to laugh to myself as he sounded like he was probably wearing overalls and a straw hat waiting to get home to that fresh batch of white lightning he brewed the night before, lol! It was also funny when he said to the uhaul rep after she asked him to send help to me, "well that's a long way, so as long as it's ok with Uhaul we'll run a tire out there." I'm thinking, uh yeah, I'm stuck in the middle of nowhere with a blown tire, sending someone out would be a good thing. It was Sunday, so they had to call in one of their employees in to bring the tire, so 1 1/2 hours later the guy pulled up in the service truck. He did a great job getting me back together fairly quickly and said the tire on the other side was low on air and that's probably what caused the blowout. They didn't look all that low to me but what do I know. I had to sign the bill, the service call not including the tire was $250. Glad I wasn't paying for it. The Uhaul rep that helped me on the phone stayed in touch the whole time with phone calls and texts until I was back on the road. I've heard a lot of bad about Uhaul, but I'd have to say overall they all did a good job.
So now I'm back on the road and finally get to Memphis. Anyone ever traveled through there? Their idea of road signs, or lack of them, wasn't funny. I got all turned around and ended up lost downtown somehow. While getting gas I was a little concerned about the tire that was still rubbing sometimes on the driver's side so I pulled the wheel and got the hammer out to beat the inner wheel well on that side too. Glad I did, that west Memphis and into Arkansas has the worst roads I've been on for a long time. Another funny thing about Memphis is apparently they don't believe in making left hand turns at intersections. I found myself going into parking lots to turn around so I could get on the roads I needed to. What a pain that was.
Needless to say when I saw that welcome to Arkansas sign I was relieved to put the two day nightmare of Tennessee behind me. Here's a shot at a rest stop in Oklahoma I think. you can see how low it was without the bags working...
