Flat Tire

We drove to Utah for a short visit last Friday.  On the way we got a flat tire.  We were in Glenwood Canyon and hit a rock (a pretty big rock) and it did my tire in.  So, we pulled over and Justin was the hero of the day and changed the tire (his first attempt ever - and he was very manly and wouldn't let me get near it and made me stay on the safe side of the road) and got us back on the road again.  These visuals might help set the scene for you:

Justin is getting the jack under the car and giving oncoming traffic a nice view of his underwear - owing, of course, to the fact that he wears his pants so low...  (Seriously, how can that be comfortable??)

Then the jack fell.  It was kind of a slow motion moment as the jack and the car just slowly fell back.  I was glad that the tireless part of the car was on the gravel side of the road so it didn't hit the asphalt.  But I was really glad Justin wasn't under the car!

And here's the damage.  It's kind of hard to see in this picture but the wheel had to be replaced as well as the tire.  One of the spokes (?) for the lug nuts had to be replaced too, although that wasn't due to the rock.  

A couple riding their bikes stopped to tell us that our hub cap had rolled across the highway and into the ditch and they were very concerned that we knew where it went so we could go get it cause it'd be awful to have no hubcap!  Apparently they didn't notice that I'm already missing two others, so really, this just makes it a majority.   I think I'll remove the lonely one that's left. Needless to say, we did not cross the highway and search through the knee-high weeds to find it.

So, in case you're ever in a similar predicament here are some pointers.  I was glad we were prepared!  We had an emergency roadside kit that had the lug nut wrench thingy (I'm all about the technical terms!), a nice heavy, hallow bar to use as leverage to get the lug nuts loose (many thanks to my brother-in-law, Chad, for that one!), a cell phone  (to get pointers from Dad as we worked), and wipes (tires are filthy, nasty things!).   And, we were really close to the West Glenwood Springs exit, which was a blessing in itself, but a further blessing was that - provided you can figure out their really stupid Vailesque 20-way round about - there's a Big-O Tire right off the highway.  And their employees are very nice and helpful!   And all this only increased our travel time to about 10 hours and cost around $100 (because the tire has a warranty).