First Adventure of 2008!

Yesterday was our first adventure of 2008! My son, Chris was on his way to move back home from being on his own since he got out of high school in 2001. He went off to college and stayed in northern NY. He had rented a u-haul and also has our old van. He was near Scranton, PA (about 2 hours from us) when all of a sudden the big bar that holds up the running board broke off. He ended up running it over with his back right tire. It blew out the tire. He had to maneuver it to the side as trucks were darting out of his way. As he was moving to the shoulder of the road, the weight of everything then blew out the left back tire! He made it safely to the side and called us... who else??? He didn't have his AAA card on him (?) so we gave him the # to call along with his ID #. They said that they can tow his van as part of the plan but would be about $100 to also tow the u-haul. Then they'd take him to a station to buy 2 tires. We told him we'd come to see what we can do. So we drove to Scranton and there he was, lounging in his car. What a mess the right tire was. It must have had about 10 holes in it!
People make fun of us because we tend to buy what we don't 'need' at garage sales but boy, we made the best investment this summer! My husband PJ, bought a car jack for $5. We got home and he was questioning why he didn't but the other one also. So he went back and bought the 2nd one for $5 also. So fast forward, PJ takes the 2 jacks plus the one from my car so now we had 3 jacks. He used one to jack up the front of the u-haul where it was attached to the van because it was pulling the van down. Then being that there were 2 blown tires, he jacked up both sides of the van. So we were able to get both tires off and get new tires from PJ's favorite tire chain COSTE TIRES just off the exit. We don't have any on L.I. but we've used them on many trips. They put us in front of the line and we were out of there within a half hour. We left Chris with his car because his 'worldly possessions' were in that u-haul! In the mean time, he taped up his running board with electrical tape to the inside of the van so the thing wouldn't fall off when he was driving! It was now only held on with a screw in the front and a screw on the back! We brought the tires back and PJ and Chris put them back on and off we went.The story had a happy ending and he didn't get in an accident when it happened so all worked out well. Here's a couple of pictures. YES! I brought my camera!