Sat, Mar 5 (Fairhope, AL)
03.05.05
Brenda got lots of good sleep last night, so we checked out of the hotel about noon and started heading to Austin. We decided to skip New Orleans for this trip.
We passed thru Beamont toward Houston when the left rear tire of the car fell apart. We pulled over to the side of the road and called Hertz, and they called the GM service folks who spent a fair amount of time trying to find somebody to come out and change the tire (they couldn’t find us on their maps).
The tow truck arrived and the guy was able to get the old wheel off and get the spare down, but the jacking point he was able to use left the car with about 1″ less than he needed to get the new tire installed. As his truck was parked on the service road next to the highway, he decided he’d cross the grassy bit and simply lift the car with his tow bar. He got stuck in the grassy bit. A while later one of his work buddies showed up with a 4×4 250 pickup truck and got the tow truck where it needed to be.
A bit later we were on our way (with clear instructions from Hertz that they needed to see the dead tire to decide if they would pay for this or not). As it was already about 9pm we decided to stay in Houston tonight and head to Austin in the morning.