NOTE: This chapter has accompanying photos posted on Tumblr, under the user name "kindly-whisper-tolkien" and the tag "fleetwood".
July 23
As per the norm, things did not go quite according to plan today.
Right after entering Georgia we blew a tire on the trailer. Literally. The tire exploded! The sound was terrifying, and the trailer jerked to the side, nearly running us into the path of a pickup truck! Thankfully, though, Thorin managed to get us off the road safely. He and the older boys then got the trailer disconnected from the car and up on a jack so they could get the tire off; then everyone but Kíli and I left to get a new one.
Certainly, they didn't all need to go, but I didn't want the younger kids stuck out at the side of the road in the heat, and with so many vehicles zooming by! At any rate, Kíli and I were enough to keep an eye on the trailer. It wasn't as if anyone was going to steal it, after all – not with only three tires! But, well, the eye we kept on it was from a safe distance, since it was up on the jack the whole time, and it was so wobbly that I was afraid that it would fall over whenever a truck went by and the air pressure shook it.
We were a bit concerned about the animals, of course, with them being in the trailer when it jerked and jostled. So we (carefully, so as not to shake the trailer) went in through the rear door to the back bedroom and bathroom area to check on them. The dog was fine – still in the tub, sleeping like a puppy! The cat was also fine, judging from the way he jumped on my shoulder and dug his claws into me as he bit my ear and screamed. That's his normal reaction when he's traveling, after all.
Anyway, Thorin and the others eventually got back (it took a couple hours, so they grabbed lunch for everyone while they were out, and brought me and Kíli burgers). He and Fíli then put the new tire on the trailer while I got back into the air-conditioned car with Kíli and the younger kids. Unfortunately, it turned out that our jack isn't actually strong enough to lift the trailer as high as it needed to be in order to get the tire on. So Thorin let the air out of it so they could slide it on, and we were going to have to limp to some place where we could refill it with air; but a nice truck driver saw our troubles and he had an air pump, so he gave us a fill!
So, then we got back on the road, and the rest of the trip was rather uneventful. Still, when we got to the campsite, we found that the front door was jammed shut, likely from when the trailer got jostled by the exploding tire. The bottom of it now sticks tight, and to open it from the outside we have to shimmy it with a screwdriver and lever it up. But from the inside, it can't be opened at all, so it is easier just to go through the back door for the time being.
I don't think the cat likes us stepping over his litter box in our coming and going, though, as if he wasn't already angry enough about getting stuck in the trailer when we were traveling. The dog, at least, came out wagging her tail and yapping happily. As for the rest of us, I think we are going to sleep well tonight!