While driving from Caspar Beach to Morgan Hill we first drove on Hwy 1 (narrow road along the shore with lots of tight turns and no shoulder) then Hwy 128 (narrow and no shoulder for most of it but not as many tight turns) then 101 till we got close to Oakland where we got into I880. That’s a busy multi lane freeway.
So we’re driving along when a car pulls up on our left and the driver frantically waves and points at our rig. What!?! We pulled over and found that, for the 4th time, we are missing a wheel! Not the tire, the whole wheel! All 6 lug bolts had sheared off and the wheel just came off and ran away. A trucker pulled up behind us and said several people had slowed as the wheel bounced along down the road but it didn’t hit anything. Thank goodness!!
Well, the only thing we could do was limp off the freeway at the next exit in Hayward. We found an auto repair shop close by so we limped there only to find it was closed. Not sure if just for the day since it was barely 2pm or if it was out of business.
We called AAA for some assistance finding a place to get it repaired and they suggested a few places within a few miles. Unfortunately none of them would accept us, either too busy or the lot wouldn’t hold our rig. We started getting desperate thinking we’d have to spend the night at the side of the road with no water (our fresh water tank was empty) or electricity. I tried a Truck and RV paint and repair place about 5 miles away who agreed to help us after I did some begging! So we called AAA to see if we could be towed there to save our other wheel on that side from failing due to the heavy load. No dice! We would need a “lowboy” used for hauling heavy loads and no one had that equipment. So we ended up limping along side streets at 5mph to get there. We got there just a little before they closed.
But, they got our rig behind their gate so it would be protected and estimated 2-4 days for repair, mostly because of supply chain problems with getting the parts we needed.
So, off to a cheap motel that would take our dog. We ended up at a Red Roof Inn in Hayward and the owner was nice enough to give us a ground floor room so Laddy wouldn’t have to get up stairs (due to his weak back legs and heart problem that would be a no-go).
That all happened on a Monday, Wednesday morning the shop said the parts were being picked up and the rig would be ready that afternoon. YAY!!
We had a few hours between check out time and when the rig was ready so I looked for things we could do. Found a nice dog park but also learned that Hayward, CA has the highest crime rate per capita of any city of any size anywhere in the world. WHAT!?! Good thing I found that out as we were leaving not arriving!
But, the wheel got repaired and we made it to our next destination a couple days late.
We took all this in stride like we’ve done for all of our mishaps! Here’s a pic of our broken wheel: