There was a time in my youth that I was able to perform a fair amount of work on my vehicles. This came from a combination of boyfriends who worked on cars, and the fact that many of my early vehicles required a certain amount of constant maintenance. I had two VW Bugs which even allowed me to swap out a few fenders along the way. Then came the era of catalytic converters, emissions equipment and my love of manicures. My automotive capabilities fell by the wayside.

My traveling lifestyle has required reactivation of these skills. In the past year I have learned how to pump gas (yes, in Oregon it is illegal to pump your own gas and I believe you can be shot on sight for even looking at a gas pump), check fluid levels, add oil, coolant and other fluids, check my tire pressure and a variety of other items that are solely for RVs (if you don't already know what black water is, you really don't want to).

Unfortunately, no matter how carefully you check and monitor, there will come a day when something breaks that cannot be fixed without a myriad of tools and gear I have long given up. And it is almost always a given that these issues will never come at a good time, either location, time or financially (or often, all of the above). In the past two months for me this has included a new alternator, starter, battery cable, heater core issues, breaks, fuses, and, most recently, tires.

I'm not exactly sure which one it was (there were so many) but one of the canyon-sized potholes in Memphis caused some damage to my rear tires. Of course, I didn't know it at the time, but slowly, thread by rubber thread, they began to plot against me. The first one was kind and died at the tire store. I had gone in to check about an alignment after vibrating my way down I-40. I received the sad news while looking at a tire which had just gone totally flat in less than 10 minutes of driving in. The other sad news: they didn't carry that size of tire. I was in the rig, ready to go, and they pumped up the tire and sent me down the road 2 blocks to the next tire store. I was flat by the time I reached it. Oh, and they didn't have a tire that fit my rig either. After very kindly helping me locate someone who did have a tire, and could come out the next morning to fix it, they allowed  me to spend the night in their lot.

$325 later for a tire, service call, tire disposal and fuel surcharge I was back on the road. But I was far from done with the tire issue.