WHAT the…??
Bollocks, a blown tire!
My turnpike trance was gone in a flash. Both hands gripped
the steering wheel. I took my foot off the gas pedal and let the Ford U-Haul
truck coast gradually to near-standstill, then nudged it off the highway.
During catastrophic tire failure like this, especially at high
speed, you have to resist the temptation to hit the brakes. That could throw you out of control and even
flip your vehicle. Instead, you just coast, steering cautiously to compensate for
yaw.
For the past year and a half, Leah and I have been moving –
one U-Haul load at a time – from west Texas to southern California. The trip
follows Interstate 10 all the way to the California route 210 exit at Redlands.
Typically, after the first day’s drive we overnight in Phoenix, then arrive at
our destination late the following afternoon. It’s a journey of about nine
hundred miles.
Interstate 10 runs from Jacksonville, Florida, to Santa
Monica, California. The other major coast-to-coast freeway, Interstate 80, stretches
from New Jersey to San Francisco.
Before the interstate system came along, most coast-to-coast
road trips, including the six I made during college in the
1960s, followed legendary two-lane Route 66. Departing Virginia, I’d pick up the
66 in St. Louis and take it as far as Los Angeles, traveling through the Painted Desert,
the Petrified Forrest, by Meteor Crater in Arizona, and finally across the
Mojave Desert into California.
After awhile, I began to notice construction of Interstate 40,
the four-lane freeway that eventually replaced the 66.
Route 66 has a storied history. Established in 1926, the
road was a major thoroughfare westward during the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s.
In The Grapes of Wrath, John
Steinbeck describes it as "the mother road.” In 1940, McDonald’s opened its first hamburger
shop on a stretch of the 66 in San Bernardino, California. The U-Drop Inn is a
famous art deco-styled motel, recently restored, on what used to be part of 66
in Shamrock, Texas.
The roadside attraction I recall best, though, is the Whiting
Bros. chain of gasoline stations. About
forty of these stations, some with restaurants and motels, were scattered along
the 66 as far west as Barstow, California. Whenever the next one would be a
ways off, you’d see a sign reading something like “Fifty miles to the next Whiting Bros.” This was important because back then there
was nothing else out there. Even so, my red 1967 Volkswagen beetle, which got
about thirty miles to the gallon and had a reserve fuel supply, allowed me to push the
limits a bit.
The VW also had an air-cooled engine that did well in the
heat. Crossing the Mojave, you’d see car radiators, lots of them, in the shade of a prickly pear, spluttering like a riled-up tea kettle.
But the Volkswagen was no Chevy corvette. It’s measly 53-horsepower
produced a top speed of about 80 miles per hour, which could make passing an
eighteen-wheeler a bit dicey. Where Route 66 crossed the Mojave west of Needles,
California, the road was virtually a straightaway, and trucks would pick up
speed there to make up for lost time. In order get around a big rig, I’d have
to push the pedal to the metal and eke my way past, sometimes running abreast of the truck for
a mile or more, trusting to fate that the oncoming traffic was only a mirage.
Upon completion of the interstate
system in 1985, Route 66 was officially decommissioned. As work had progressed on I-40, bypassed
sections of 66 were demoted to state
or local use or fell into desuetude. Here and there, you can still see abandoned
stretches of the old road, overgrown with weeds and littered with relics –
rusted vehicles, placards for products no longer made, derelict remnants
of the Whiting Bros. gasoline empire.
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Derelict Whiting Bros. gasoline station, Route 66 |
On the morning of our big blowout near Buckeye, Arizona, just
west of Phoenix, traffic along the I-10 was moderate. Random passenger
cars weaved amongst loose clusters of slower moving eighteen-wheelers, the familiar
warp and weft of interstate travel. The outside temperature was about 84
degrees Fahrenheit, cool by Arizona standards.
The situation for a blowout might have been worse.
After the bone-jolting whacka-whacka-whacka died away and the U-Haul came to a stop, I squeezed through the driver’s door and carefully picked my way aft
between vehicle and roadway as though negotiating a narrow ledge. The traffic noise
was deafening, and sudden bursts of air from vehicles speeding past hindered
progress.
Except for some dry rot of the sidewalls, all four rear tires appeared to be OK. Returning with less effort along the passenger’s side, I checked the U-Haul’s other end.
![]() |
Blown out Goodrich truck tire resembling Dante’s 10th
circle.
|
The right front tire had virtually
exploded, causing tread separation and noticeable damage to the wheel well and
fender. The tire itself had been reduced to a vision of hell. Sprouting from what
had been the tread was a shock of belting wire that looked like tangled tares
of carbide tungsten, demonic ragweed or dogbane flourishing on basalt
– Satan’s own cereal crop. It reminded me a bit of the Shatani (shaytan means
devil in Arabic) lava flow in Kenya’s Tsavo West that we’d crossed one day in a
Land Rover, escorted by guards armed to the teeth against Tanzanian renegades.
Lava flow or no, itinerancy can make you feel vulnerable, especially
if you’re toting a strong box. So for
this trip I‘d decided to bring a Colt .45 ACP semi-automatic Combat Commander
(shorter barrel than the Model 1911 government version).
“A good thing, too,” I muttered to myself ruefully, feeling more
than a little agitated and nervously fingering the .45’s thumb safety inside my
green canvas and leather Orvis shoulder bag. Leah had packed up all her jewelry for this
run, not to mention the dining room silver, and now here we were stranded, a
couple of Berbers alone on the Silk Road with a lame camel and no
caravansary.
For a handgun, you see, is not just a weapon, its a talisman.
Its apotropaic magic forefends every mischief, mere ownership averts all peril.
Its good luck nonpareil and a safeguard to liberty.
That’s why guns are so popular and for sale at Wal-Mart.
But it seems they’re no good for tires.
In the event, nothing much happened on I-10 that morning. In
addition to no hockey-masked heistmeisters swooping down in souped-up dune
buggies, other things conspired to make the whole business seem trivial.
First, U-Haul International, Inc. happens to be
headquartered in Phoenix, so rescue by the mother ship was less than an hour
away. Next, U-Haul trucks have an emergency "1-800" number emblazoned on the
passenger’s-side visor that you can’t miss no matter how flustered you get, and
it connects you to a helpful emergency centre.
Lastly, besides the Colt .45, I’d brought aboard a 3G-caliber iPhone 4S with an app for Google
Maps, so alerting U-Haul’s roadside response team (one guy) to our location was simple.
These days help on the highway is just a cell tower away – and I had five bars. Itinerancy no longer exits. Wherever you may be, you’re always “@” your cell phone. Its almost like staying at home.
The repair technician showed up apace, changed out the demolished front tire, and pronounced us good to go. We arrived on the west coast tired, a few hours late, and shaken but not stirred.
After all, it was only a blowout – even if for a second it did
take us higher.
I'm indebted to Wikipedia for background material
I'm indebted to Wikipedia for background material