There is something about our trailer tires that seems to attract sharp metal objects. Over the past couple of years we have had four or five tires damaged by nails, screws, and other miscellany. Most of the time, the tires have been punctured near the sidewall, which is a “no patch zone” and so the tires have had to be replaced.

This seems to defy logic. We have four tires on the trailer and four on the truck, yet we’ve never had a flat on the truck. In fact, I’ve never had a flat on any vehicle I’ve driven since 1983. So why do the trailer tires seem to pick up damage so regularly? At $150 a pop, I’d like to know.

Tire damage — click for larger

The two pictures above show the souvenirs we picked up in Mexico yesterday. The big one at left is part of a deadbolt. It caused the loud hiss that alerted us to the problem, but when I inspected the tire today I found that a nail was already in the center of the tread (right photo). Who knows how long that had been in there? The nail was holding air quite nicely.

In a way we were lucky, because without some outward sign like a leak, I might never have spotted that nail until the problem became critical — meaning possibly the disintegration of the tire on the highway. This has made me slightly paranoid, so I’ll be inspecting the other three tires very carefully before we head out again. The parking lots and pulloffs everywhere we went this week were littered with debris, so much that I’ll be pleasantly surprised if the other tires are all undamaged.

We are all recovering from our trip in different ways. Eleanor has been busy gearing up for the next phase, I’ve been catching up (and trying to get ahead) on work, and Adam & Susan are decompressing back at their Airstream. We took a little time out in the afternoon to visit the Tucson Botanical Garden, but other than that it has been a day of just ordinary stuff, like getting the tire replaced.

Hummingbird and chuparosa at Tucson Botanical Garden

We have made some progress on the house. Handy Jerry came over today and hooked up our plumbing, so we now have working sinks in the bathrooms and kitchen, plus the Bosch “dischwascher”. He didn’t get to the stove or vent hood, but this leaves us very close to complete, and we have a reasonably useful house now — just in time to leave it behind.

One final note:   you’ll see that on the right sidebar of the blog I’ve put Google Adwords back in.   We had suspended them about a year ago, but with the expenses of traveling rising lately, I’m hoping they’ll generate a little revenue.   Daddy needs new tires!