5
 
 
 
11:18 AM, Thursday, February 21st, 2019:
 
Took a day. Here's the video...
 
 
So the whole story is pretty much this: bought a new/used car a couple months back as the Explorer just wasn't up to task and I happened upon a stunningly clean and low-miles Expedition. The tires seemed fine, but upon further inspection, probably would've been wise to just replace all four of them. They were 2013 tires. Who knows.
 
Basically the added weight from the trailer (and the car and trailer add over 5000 pounds) put pressure on the back wheels and out of the blue: BOOOOOOOOOM. My immediate thought was that something broke on the connectionfrom the trailer to the car but I looked in my mirror and saw that wasn't the case and knew it had to be a tire blowout. The car drifts left and straight into the lane next to me that thankfully had no one there and I just tried to keep the car under control as I pulled over to the right. I have to believe the drivers around me saw what happened because I suddenly had a clear path that I most assuredly did not have before that.
 
"Well, this is gonna suck."
 
The kids were all "what was that?" and I told them. They went back to what they were doing and I started trying to figure out how to get the spare off as Talya stood behind everything to hopefully keep cars from hitting us. That's the actually scary part is there's hardly any shoulder and the way people text and driver? UGGGH. But I got to work and quickly found that no matter what, those bolts were not coming off. Called AAA and with 2 breaker bars measuring over 6 feet from the nut we finally made it work.
 
But of course even getting back on the road I wasn't doing well. I'd never taken the kids on a road-trip with the Explorer because it never felt safe and an accident while towing a car is just... so, many, different ways to die. LOL. Like - it absolutely changes all dynamics of driving. However in a bit of a catch-22, what caused the blowout also kept us straight: the trailer. That trailer made it so I had only lost 1/8th of my wheels, not 1/4th. When you still have 7 of 8 tires on the ground, it might veer... but it isn't likely to spin out like it could when you only have 3 left. Either way, it's gonna be a really long time before I consider putting them in a car when I'm towing that much weight. It's an innate need to protect them and this felt WILDLY irresponsible.
 
So we stopped a couple times on the way back home because I just needed to walk around. The mental exhaustion just floored me. I'm still not really over it. Thankfully the kids are oblivious but you add that to the list of things parents keep with them for the rest of their lives while the kids just keep on livin'.
 
That's all that matters.
 
Adam