So, we're heading toward Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas, but it will take two days of travel to get there.  We decided to spend one night at Tanbark Campground outside of Dickson, TN, a drive of ~350 miles:

Shouldn't be too bad.  But, just wait...

There were a number of large backups on I-40 which cost us about 1 hour, there was a stop at Costco (for more lemon coated almonds!), there were two stops for gas, and then...

Ok, first we exited North Carolina and entered Tennessee:

After quite a few while, RIchard saw this woman pass us and give him a strange look...

Then, Richard saw another person pass us and signal that we should pull over!

Having seen this type of thing before, we suspected what was to occur next and wanted to pull completely off of the freeway into a parking lot (as we did the last time), but alas, there were no turn offs for many miles.  So, we pulled over onto the shoulder in the middle of a wide, straight, stretch of freeway and turned on the flashers.

Looking at the trailer tires, we found that the front tire on the passenger side was completely destroyed!

So, we set about replacing it with the spare tire.  It's actually really easy to do this on a trailer which has two axles.  You can simply ride the good tire onto a large set of blocks, which raises the bad tire off of the ground sufficiently that it's fairly easy to replace!  (Just make sure you lossen the lug nuts first, since after it's raised off of the ground it'll spin too freely to do so.)  We always keep a large lug wrench and a torque wrench in the truck just for such an occurance, and we have a cigarette lighter powered tire inflater which we use regularly to check and top up pressure.  After replacing the tire torquing it to the appropriate amount (using a star pattern of tightening, of course) and topping up the pressure, we were back on the road an hour later!  We stopped after a while to make sure the torque was still good, and made it to the campground much later than originally intending!  (We called the campground to say we would be arriving late, of course.  They met us at the office within seconds of our arrival!)

We were a little concerned about the upcoming rain:

but it obligingly held off until after we got into the site, leveled, chaulked, and hooked up with electricity and water!

The showers at this campground are quite adequate and we are finally resting comfortably after a long and sometimes trying day.

Tomorrow, we travel just a little longer than today and finally reach Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas.

Monday, April 6:

We found that Discount Tires carries the same tire as what we have on the trailer (and then Richard remembered that the other trailer tires were, indeed, bought from Discount Tire). We called a Discount Tire store in Memphis, where we would be passing by on our way to the State Park.  They said they had some in stock, so we decided to try to get out as early as possible and drop by that store to get our destroyed tire fixed.

In the course of the trip, we crossed the Mississippi River and entered Arkansas.

The Mississippi River:

Arriving at the Discount Tire store, Richard was greeted by a guy whom we would later find is nicknamed "Little Chris" (because he says there's another 'Chris" who is "Big Chris").  He was very helpful, looking up our information in their network using Richard's phone number.  (All Discount Tire stores are connected and your account information can be retrieved from any of them.  Also, all warrantees are valid at all stores nation-wide.  We didn't know that, but we do now.)  Chris said, "I can take care of fixing your busted tire in less than 1/2 hour, no problem."  Then we told him that we would actually like not just that, but the other rather bald tire replaced as well.  He said, "Sure, I can do both in 1/2 hour, no problem!" Long story, short, he was indeed correct!  He fixed both tires and replaced them onto the trailer (carefully jacking it up under the axles) all within about 1/2 hour and we were back on the road!  It was amazing and Richard wrote them a glowing review, mentioning "Little Chris" by name, so he could get some credit for his amazing work!  We hope it helps his work there!

After 4 more hours (It was 2-1/2 hours to the tire store and 4 hours after that), we finally reached the Crater of Diamonds State Park.

We thought that backing into the camping spot may be a problem, due to the rear view camera currently not working - probably a wire in the cable broken), but actually it went amazingly well and we are safely settled into our new home for the next few days.