Flat Tire

On Tuesday after Sarita picked me up from the Trax station (the lightrail system for SLC) we decided to stop by Costco and pick up some things, like pizza for dinner. On the way home as we were pulling up to a stoplight very close to where we live, I heard a loud puncture sound. I could hear a clicking as I continued forward slowly. I thought it sounded like the tire, but was hoping it was something else. I waited at the light and then went through turning left and then pulled over almost immediately. It was on a pretty wide shoulder of the road but the snow right there had never melted, it just kind of turned into ice. I got out and checked to see if one of the tires had a flat. Sure enough it was the back left tire so I got back in the car and called AAA. For the past couple of months I had been getting reminders of renewing AAA membership but thought that I would just wait until we needed help and then renew. I should have just renewed them. So I had to pay for new accounts before they would send anyone out.

Once the paperwork was finally completed they said it would take about an hour for someone to get there. We have a small tire in the back so I thought maybe while we waited I could just move the car to a safer spot to change the tire myself. The fallacy there was that I thought I could move the car. Turns out that I parked right on the ice and the car wouldn't budge, so we were stuck waiting in the car. Luckily we had pizza with us. We were pretty close to home but Sarita stayed with me in the car instead of walking home.

Once the guy from AAA got there I figured since he was there I might as well just let him change the tire for us. He also checked the air pressure and everything (which was nice since I had to drive Sarita down to Lehi the next day so I could take the car in to Costco and get the tire fixed). I was worried that driving around too much on the smaller tire would create more problems, but everything turned out fine and I was able to get a new tire put on. It was quite the ordeal but I'm glad that it happened after work and not before, and that it was before our trip to California and not during.