Lets call this the Firestone tire incident. Do you remember in 2000 when Firestone recalled 6.5 million tires? I remember it clearly as I was a victim of quite a few of these explosive tires. News flash! When a company recalls a product you buy and use, such as tires, check your vehicle and see if you have them on your rims. Then burn said tires! Or okay, just exchange them for tires not as explodey. That’s what I should have done, it would have saved me, my family, and my friends a lot of time on my nineteenth birthday.
My birthday is in late August and my family decided we should have a BBQ with friends and family in the evening. Before this shindig, on a glorious August morning I thought, whats more fun in the summertime then off roading in the forest with your brother and your manager from work? On pay day, when your vehicle is well known for breaking down in the middle of the forest, and said manager has yet to hand out the pay checks yet?
A little back track for y’all; the summer after I graduated high school before I started community college for a degree I had no interest in, I worked at a restaurant in our small mountain town. This summer I had the time of my life. I made some amazing friendships that will last a life time and I had some crazy adventures.
On a hot August morning, my manager from work and my brother Sean and I all jumped in my red ’89 Ford Bronco and headed out Lake Arrowhead way for a morning of off roading in the mountains. We were having a awesome time driving up and down the mountain roads really fast and screaming (Julie and I, not so much Sean, that is) when POW! My tire blew out. At this point we were way out in the middle of no where, closer to Hesperia and the desert then any of the mountain community’s. We were probably an hour at least from the nearest paved road in Lake Arrowhead. So we get out in the dry disgusting desert heat, proceed to change a tire, find that the spare is a Firestone, and then had an oh shit moment. I had owned the Bronco for about a year at this point and I had never looked at the spare. Wops.
So we change the tire, and decide okay were just going to take it really slow driving back. We made it about a quarter mile through the dirt when the Fire Stone tire exploded. Awesome. Now we are about two hours from home, at least an hour down a dirt road, in the absolute middle of no where. Of course this was over ten years ago and cell phones had way worse service then they have now. Our only option was to just start walking back and try to get enough service to send a call. Of course there was no one any where around here, either. We had seen some construction crews miles and miles back, laying what looked like cable, but we were miles from where they were. We walked a few miles back in the heat and finally after many failed attempts and a increasingly dying battery I was able to get a call in to my father.
The great thing about my Dad? He loves to collect junk. At this point in time we had about fifteen tires stored under the porch of different shapes and sizes. I have no idea why he collected all these tires and up until this point in time, none of these tires had ever come in handy. On this day, I thought, thank god Dad collects junk. I still have no idea how I explained to him where on earth we were, but some how he shoved 4 or 5 different truck tires in the back of his huge white F350, grabbed my 65 year old GRANDMA and took off for the dirt roads of Lake Arrowhead. I have no idea why he thought my Grandma would ever enjoy off roading.
This story does have a happy ending. My Dad showed up finally with a collection of none Fires Stone Tires, I changed my second tire of the day and we started driving back. When we finally got back near Lake Arrowhead, Julie realized she had about 20 voice mails on her cell phone. You see, this was pay day. We had only meant to be gone a few hours and Julie had not been to the bank yet to deal with our pay checks. She had so many angry calls from our coworkers, wanting to know where their damn pay checks were. I had a few angry voice mails on my cell too.
“Amber, where the hell is Julie! I want my money bitch!” That sounds like my BFF at the time, Jess. By the time we finally made it back to Running Springs it was later in the evening and my family and friends had been at our house for hours. Every one was starving and dying to eat already, including us! We had been out in the desert all day with really no food! What an awesome nineteenth birthday!
My birthday is in late August and my family decided we should have a BBQ with friends and family in the evening. Before this shindig, on a glorious August morning I thought, whats more fun in the summertime then off roading in the forest with your brother and your manager from work? On pay day, when your vehicle is well known for breaking down in the middle of the forest, and said manager has yet to hand out the pay checks yet?
A little back track for y’all; the summer after I graduated high school before I started community college for a degree I had no interest in, I worked at a restaurant in our small mountain town. This summer I had the time of my life. I made some amazing friendships that will last a life time and I had some crazy adventures.
On a hot August morning, my manager from work and my brother Sean and I all jumped in my red ’89 Ford Bronco and headed out Lake Arrowhead way for a morning of off roading in the mountains. We were having a awesome time driving up and down the mountain roads really fast and screaming (Julie and I, not so much Sean, that is) when POW! My tire blew out. At this point we were way out in the middle of no where, closer to Hesperia and the desert then any of the mountain community’s. We were probably an hour at least from the nearest paved road in Lake Arrowhead. So we get out in the dry disgusting desert heat, proceed to change a tire, find that the spare is a Firestone, and then had an oh shit moment. I had owned the Bronco for about a year at this point and I had never looked at the spare. Wops.
So we change the tire, and decide okay were just going to take it really slow driving back. We made it about a quarter mile through the dirt when the Fire Stone tire exploded. Awesome. Now we are about two hours from home, at least an hour down a dirt road, in the absolute middle of no where. Of course this was over ten years ago and cell phones had way worse service then they have now. Our only option was to just start walking back and try to get enough service to send a call. Of course there was no one any where around here, either. We had seen some construction crews miles and miles back, laying what looked like cable, but we were miles from where they were. We walked a few miles back in the heat and finally after many failed attempts and a increasingly dying battery I was able to get a call in to my father.
The great thing about my Dad? He loves to collect junk. At this point in time we had about fifteen tires stored under the porch of different shapes and sizes. I have no idea why he collected all these tires and up until this point in time, none of these tires had ever come in handy. On this day, I thought, thank god Dad collects junk. I still have no idea how I explained to him where on earth we were, but some how he shoved 4 or 5 different truck tires in the back of his huge white F350, grabbed my 65 year old GRANDMA and took off for the dirt roads of Lake Arrowhead. I have no idea why he thought my Grandma would ever enjoy off roading.
This story does have a happy ending. My Dad showed up finally with a collection of none Fires Stone Tires, I changed my second tire of the day and we started driving back. When we finally got back near Lake Arrowhead, Julie realized she had about 20 voice mails on her cell phone. You see, this was pay day. We had only meant to be gone a few hours and Julie had not been to the bank yet to deal with our pay checks. She had so many angry calls from our coworkers, wanting to know where their damn pay checks were. I had a few angry voice mails on my cell too.
“Amber, where the hell is Julie! I want my money bitch!” That sounds like my BFF at the time, Jess. By the time we finally made it back to Running Springs it was later in the evening and my family and friends had been at our house for hours. Every one was starving and dying to eat already, including us! We had been out in the desert all day with really no food! What an awesome nineteenth birthday!
Comments
I remember when the bronco lost its 4×4 axle at Dishpan Springs and the jeep club had to rescue us lol.