Visit with the Metro Freeway Patrol
Well everyone, so things are actually happening over here even though I haven’t posted in a while. Some of that absence has been because I *couldn’t* post anything as wordpress wasn’t working right. I finally had the time to work on it today and fix it.
Quick rundown of recent events. A little over a week ago, we were camping up in the High Sierras with some good friends, the Hubbards. We had a blessed time catching fish, shooting, hiking to over 11,500′, getting completely drenched sitting out in the lake in boats and swimming in the freezing cold water. But most of all just spending time fellowshipping with friends.
BEtween school and work, and some projects I am working on, I’ve been keeping quite busy. Did I tell you that I now have a quad-core 8gig RAM Mac? 
Anyhow, on to my story.
I got pulled over on the freeway this morning. Yup, you heard that right.
Well, actually, I was pulled over by a tire who decided that it had reached the end of it’s life.
I was driving to work this morning in my 77 Ford truck and I noticed a sound, which I though was first something rattling around in the passenger side. A few miles later, it had gotten a little worse, then seemed to just stay the same. All of the sudden, I heard something hit the floorboards and the steering started to get real interesting. I was in the lane second from the left and had about 4 lanes to cross to reach the shoulder. Needless to say, I started to slow down and fought with the steering wheel for a minute. Conveniently, the car who was shadowing me to my right, slowed with me and for a minute didn’t let me get over. Eventually he did, and I found a nice wide shoulder with a slight curb and then a large dirt section. I hopped up on that and got out to check the status of things. I figured it was the tire, and it sure was. It just so happened that I had my tools and a spare handy so I went to work. No longer than 2 minutes after I had pulled over, one of those Metro Freeway Patrol trucks pulled up. While I waited for him to checkin with his headquarters and get out I went fishing for a few more tools and realized that I probably didn’t have a jack. The guy with the Metro Patrol jumped out, fished around in his tools and came up with a very nice dolly jack. Problem solved. We changed the tire and chatted a bit. I thanked him for his assistance and we were off.
I happened to have enough tools with me, that I wouldn’t have had a major problem, but it did definitely make things easier. I do know that for the vast majority of drivers, those trucks can been a real blessing. Definitely one of those few services that I do not mind paying taxes for.
All said and done, God was good. No one was hurt and nothing was really damaged cept the tire.
And now, for a picture.
It doesn’t look that bad in the picture, but it was pretty bad. The tread for the most part stayed together, but the sidewalls were obliterated.