Dropping a Tire

"That Lady is yelling something at us." Renita said and so we slowed down and she rolled down her window to hear her. The car pulled even with Renita and the lady yelled to us, "You dropped a tire!". For some reason we both thought it must be the spare but wen welooked into the driver side mirror we could see smoke billowing out of the place where the rear driver side  tire used to be . Yup used to be. I slowed and stopped and was able to turn into an abandoned Walmart parking lot without any further damage. The tire and rim and lug nuts were all gone!

Planning on leaving Rockport, Texas, on the first of April, we made an appointment for our usual maintaince, repack the bearings, check and adjust the brakes, check and test the refrigerator and propane systems. Just the usual stuff. Our appointment was fro 8 am and I fumed as of course they worked on someone else first. After all I had made the appointment a month before.
Driving by at ten thirty our fifth wheel still was sitting there and I started to fume a bit. Renita suggested we go birding and so we went to Goose Island State park for lunch and to renew our Texas Park Pass., I told her that if we weren't being worked on we should just hook up the fifth wheel and go but she said I should be patient. No telling a Brackin to be patient is wasting ones breath, but when we returned our unit was being worked on and they assured us that it would probably be done that afternoon.

They called and said it was done and we left the camper place at five pm, yeah! Two miles down the road the tire and rim came off, damaging the side of the fiver and the back fiberglass cap. We were both somewhat in shock as we looked at the damage. How could a wheel and rim come off unless they had forgotten to tighten the lug nuts?
Rentia called the camper place and even though it was after five, their closing time, she finally got a hold of the service manager who came out, took one look at our rig, and then started apologizing. He called their mechanic and a bit later he showed up with another tire and a new hub.

Meanwhile the service person had made reservations for us at a nice motel. He told us that the business would pay for all of our expenses, and told s to unhook and let them haul the fifth wheel back to the shop. Now both he and myself had already looked for the missing tire and rim and hadn't found them. A lady had stopped and told us that she had seen it bound into a swamp and thank goodness it hadn't hit anyone,(We never did find the tire).
The next morning the general manager of the business called us and said apologized for their negligence. He also assured us that they would try to have the fifth wheel repaired by Wednesday, and told us to keep all of our receipts. It had been four years since we started our full timing adventure and we had slept in our fifth wheel every night since.

Quickly the motel became tiresome and eating out every night does not make for a good diet. On Monday we met with the gm and he told us of their own internal findings and said the mechanic had stated that he got busy and forgot to tighten the nuts on the wheel. He said they were leaving no expense and were going to try and have us back on the road by Wednesday.
Now we know a lot of others who full time and who had time in the repair shop. We can now commiserate with them. With everything you own being in our fifth wheel we had to go back to the ship to get clothes, medications, etc... all the things you take for granted. While we have always tried to be prepared we had never planned for being back in a motel.
Wire wrapping, birding at Port Aransas,  getting Molly trimmed were all on the to do list. Fishing wasn't an option, nor bike riding as or poles were all put away and the bikes were also packed in the area we call the basement,(the storage compartment).
Our kindles and the computer both provided us with a means of amusement, and I joined the Kindle Nation, (thank you Bobbie for the idea). Between the two of us we downloaded over thirty free books and so we read and worked on our plans for when we leave Texas. Clear skies