So when my tire blew out on route 283 last week, my one thought was how we’d just driven to the Smokies in North Carolina last weekend, all around town there, back to PA (over 1,500 miles round trip), and the tire waited until the next day after the trip to shred.

My second thought was how I was now late for the staff recognition dinner in ten minutes, but my wife came by ten minutes later (she’d planned to drive to dinner separately, but events now occurred otherwise) and we made it to the dinner just a few minutes late!

Take a look at the tire:

Dave's Van Tire

The damage isn’t easy to see in the picture, but the top edge is where most of the shredding (and the blowout) took place.

I’ll tell you though, my tire wasn’t half as shredded as Jeff and Lisa’s trailer tire:

Jeff and Lisa's Trailer Tire

Jeff and Lisa are my brother-in-law and sister, and were on their way up to their cabin to meet us Memorial Day weekend. Even though the picture’s smaller than my own tire’s pic, I think we can all agree that the damage was much greater. The rest of this tire was spread out across a mile of I-75 in Georgia, and I think Jeff and Lisa were pretty lucky that the trailer didn’t flip and drag them into an accident. Believe it or not, though, they were off an exit and back on the interstate a hour later with a new trailer tire.

The trailer fender was ripped off, though. I think Jeff had to reshape and reattach it before they returned to Florida.