Drove down to Lake Cumberland on Friday after work to stay the weekend at Jamestown Marina. We were going to meet our friends at the condo rental that night, then put the boat in the water and into a slip so that we could avoid the big line at the launch ramp on Saturday. Beautiful weather all weekend - just idyllic - had a marvelous time. The only negative was the crazy hectic drive down on a fast moving very crowded I-65, capped off with my first trailer tire blowout. I was going 65 and cars are whizzing past me and I felt a rumble/vibration, looked in my right side mirror and saw white smoke at the tire area (tandem). Quickly went into the emergency lane and viewed the carnage - the front tire was shreaded. Since the guard rail only allowed about 3-4 inches of clearance I couldn't change it there, and limped to the next off ramp in the emergency lane at 5 mph. Fortunately it was only about a third of a mile. Amazingly the rim seemed ok. I used my Durango jack and found that it nowhere near lifted high enough, and had to scramble to find some scraps of wood and a piece of cinderblock to add height (and danger and fear). Well it worked fine, and didn't collapse, but I made several other stupid rookie mistakes - didn't loosen the lug nuts before lifting (so had to lower, loosen, and rejack up), then, for some reason didn't loosen the key/locking lug nut (had to lower, etc.), didn't concern myself with the sharp steel wires gnarled all around the shreaded tire (and now have a few band-aids on my fingers). Well, after much cursing and sweating, I got it done, and nervously went the 80 miles left to Cumberland. We got there fine after that, and at about 11 pm, after prepping the boat, etc. we began to back the boat down the ramp, and were held up by an ambulance that we came to find out was there to pick up an injured person being brought over from the State Dock marina. Turns out she wasn't severely injured, and though it delayed an already late night for us, it made me count my blessings that no one was hurt in my blowout (except my fingers, of course).
