Petrified Forest & RV Repairs Passing Back Through New Mexico

After leaving Meteor Crater, we got our tire repaired, took some bad advice from a tire shop in a small town, continued down Route 66, and spent a stressful day in Albuquerque having things repaired. Follow along on a tale of both fun and sorrow!

Having A Tire Patched & Plugged

In my last article, I mentioned stopping at Twin Arrows, only to find that the trailer had a flat tire. I had all of the tools for a quick swap, and we continued on our way. After checking out Meteor Crater, we stopped in Winslow, Arizona to see if we could get the original tire repaired. You can find someone to plug and/or patch a flat tire, assuming it’s not on the shoulder of the tire, in almost any small town. We managed to get back on the road after spending a half hour at the shop and paying only $20.

As we were about to leave, one of the tire guys came out to give us some advice.

“I got the tire repaired, but I’d only use it as a spare.” the man said, “The sidewalls took some damage before you changed it. Your spare tire looks pretty good, even if it’s old. Just keep it on until you’re ready to buy a new set.”

He then helped us mount the repaired tire on the rear bumper, and we continued on our way.

The Most Expensive Free Campground I’ve Ever Stayed At

When we got to Holbrook, Arizona, it was getting dark. Our plan was to drive down US-180 for a few miles, drive through Petrified Forest National Park, and then continue on to New Mexico. There are no charging stations between Holbrook and Gallup, so we had to charge the truck up to almost full at the Rivian Adventure Network station there. This would give us plenty of range and extra power for an overnight stay. Then, we drove to the south gate of Petrified Forest and found a spot in a free camping lot next to one of the rock shops.

When we got up in the morning, I found out that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. My wife and my kid both wanted to go inside the rock shop, and they both came out with rocks that cost me about three times what I would have paid for an RV park in Holbrook. Ouch!

Petrified Forest National Park

We still had a great day exploring the park, though. The museums, the gift shops (again, ouch!), and the scenery were all worth it. While I had taken some of my older kids out here a few years earlier and my wife a couple of years before that, my youngest had never seen the Petrified Forest. He thoroughly enjoyed climbing around the scenery, seeing things that you can’t see anywhere else. I also got a chance to stop at one of my favorite car photo locations in the park and snapped these beauties:

After passing back over I-40, we crossed the remnants of Route 66. Petrified Forest is the only national park that has Route 66 actually pass through its boundaries! There’s a commemorative plaque, a short hike people can take, and some crumbling remains of old 66 asphalt if you walk out a ways and look around carefully. Park rangers and researchers have documented the locations of hundreds of artifacts (mostly 1940s trash, but still interesting), and the area has become a historic district.

Following Route 66 Into New Mexico

Next, we visited the Painted Desert Inn, and unfortunately found the north visitor center closed for construction. After taking one last look at the local scenery, we hit the interstate. We stopped at a truck stop on the Navajo Nation with a neat display promoting other tourist sites, charged up the truck again in Gallup at an iONNA station, and then stayed the night next to a truck stop east of Gallup, topping the truck up again as we ate breakfast. Next to the truck stop, we saw buttes in the distance that obviously inspired the movie Cars.

The Blowout

Sadly, after we left the Whiting Brothers sign, we found out that you should never drive on a tire that’s more than about 6 years old. It turns out that our spare tire that had taken on full-time duties was older than all of my children, and two of them are now legally adults. The old spare tire had spent years in the shade and didn’t show its age at all until this day.

The trailer jumped a bit, started shaking, and then a cloud of dirt emerged on the side of the highway. It was concerning, of course, but it wasn’t frightening. The heavy Silverado EV outweighed the trailer by over a ton, and we didn’t feel any sway, instability, or other scary sensations during the blowout. We just rolled to a stop on the side of the highway in perfect safety.

We got out to find that not only did that old tire explode, but it took part of the wheel well and some of the items in our storage cabinets with it. Bits of food were falling out of the camper, along with some dripping soda. It was a hell of a mess!

The off-road jack, the electric impact, and a number of other power tools were still riding in the eTrunk (GM doesn’t want to call it a “frunk”) and had to come out again. I got the blowout removed, removed damaged sections of wheel well, secured anything flapping loose down with screws, and after about 45 minutes of work, we were road-worthy again. After a night in a truck stop just west of Albuquerque, we met up with a skilled RV technician to speed up some additional repairs.

After about an hour and a half of work in a Home Depot parking lot, we were back on Route 66. We took Central Avenue through town and then stopped at a tire shop for five new trailer tires. By getting a set with stiffer sidewalls, we were able to reduce the amount of shaking the camper would go through during lunch stops. We even stopped dropping stabilizers on some nights at truck stops because it just wasn’t that big of a deal. Efficiency went up by almost 0.1 miles/kWh, adding to our range.

But, most importantly, we didn’t need to worry about blowouts or old tires anymore, and now we know how to regularly check date codes to make sure we’re never riding on old rubber.