Flattened in West Memphis

I began this morning at our terminal in West Memphis, Arkansas with my pre-trip and fueling for today's journey. My tire pressure gauge has been giving me low readings for a while now so I decided after another set of uniformly low numbers I would go down the street to the closest Pilot and buy a new one. It confirmed that my tire pressures were just fine but when I checked my left steer tire the core inside the valve stem blew and wouldn't stop the air from releasing, flattening the tire in a minute or so.

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After a short cry I got on the phone with our Road Service folks and they whistled up a mobile tire changing unit to come by and fix me up. About thirty minutes later an old, beat up van arrived and the gentleman inside jacked up the front axle and had everything set straight in another thirty minutes or so.

Between the pre-trip, fueling and tire issues I was now almost two hours behind schedule and I drove from West Memphis to our Lancaster, Texas yard non-stop, where I fueled again. Barely fifteen minutes later I departed, headed for Waco, Texas to stop for the night at the Flying J truck stop just down the street from a Hooters restaurant.