We were cruising down highway 76, about thirty minutes outside of Taos, when our trip was suddenly turned upside down. In the midst of a lovely conversation about who knows what, we were abruptly interrupted by a loud boom combined with a violent tremor. Following a brief moment of shock, we both quickly realized that we had blown a tire. Thankfully, we had plenty of room to pull over onto a fortuitously placed pull off and were able to assess the damage without causing a traffic jam.
As you can see from the banner picture, above, this tire really managed to do some damage in the process of tearing itself apart. Fortunately, all the damage to the nearby fenders was purely cosmetic, so we didn’t have to address it right in that moment. What did need our attention was that tire. After lots of pulling, straining, and cussing, I was finally able to get the shredded tire off the wheel and slap on the spare.
Now, we faced the issue of how to get the tire replaced. We managed to limp into the Santa Fe area and posted up at a Walmart so that we could regroup. Because it was Sunday, every potential tire shop we looked into was closed. Ultimately, we decided that we shouldn’t try to push the spare and that we should book a spot at a local RV park until we could get the tire replaced. This search led us to Roadrunner RV Park – a cheap, no frills park located just off the highway. Although Roadrunner was nothing to write home about, the price was low and management was quite friendly (pretty much all we needed in that moment).
We briefly thought that we would only have to stay in Santa Fe for just one evening while we got the tire fixed, however, after checking the forecast which called for heavy winter storms, we realized that we would have to extend our stay. Sadly, this meant that we would have to cancel our trip to Ruidoso, but thankfully, the RV park down there was very understanding and gave us a full refund. Boy, are we glad that we decided to play it safe on this one – that storm was intense! The winds ahead of the cold front were easily the worst part. Let’s just say we didn’t get much sleep that first night thanks to all the howling and shaking of the trailer. Eventually, the wind decided to calm down, and when it did, the snow wasn’t far behind. Who would’ve thought that our first snowstorm in the trailer would come during October – in New Mexico!?
Eventually, once the nasty weather subsided, we were finally able to get the trailer into a tire shop to be serviced. With that out of the way, it was (thankfully) time for us to say goodbye to Santa Fe. Since we were no longer going to Ruidoso, we had to alter our course once more at the last minute. After scouring the map, we decided to check out Roswell, New Mexico – yes, that Roswell, home to an infamous “UFO crash” in the late 40’s. Tune in next time as we recall our “out of this world” adventures in Roswell!