The Blowout at Bryce Canyon: Big Bertha’s Worst Day

by

Five weeks into our grand adventure, Lucy and I had survived a roof leak in Montana and a dust storm in Arizona. We were invincible at this point. Untouchable. Nothing could stop us.

We were headed from Zion National Park to Bryce Canyon—only about 90 miles, which should’ve taken maybe two hours. Easy day. The plan was to get to our campsite early, set up, and spend the afternoon hiking the rim trail before the sun turned us into jerky.

“Check the tire pressure monitor?” Lucy asked as we merged onto Highway 89.

I glanced at the little display we’d installed on the dash after buying Big Bertha—one of those tire pressure monitoring systems (TPMS) that gives you real-time readings for all six tires on the fifth wheel. Best $180 we’d spent, according to literally every RV forum on the internet.

“All good,” I said. “Pressures are right at 80 PSI across the board. We’re golden.”

Except we weren’t golden at all.

The drive up Highway 89 was gorgeous—red rocks, mountain views, the kind of scenery that makes you forget you’re towing 13,000 pounds of house on wheels. Lucy was scrolling through her phone, looking at photos from Zion, and I was thinking about what to make for dinner. Maybe tacos. Tacos sounded good.

Then I heard it.

BANG.

Not like a gunshot—more like someone had dropped a refrigerator off a building directly behind us. The truck lurched to the right, and every alarm in my brain started screaming at once.

“What was that?!” Lucy yelled.

I checked the mirror and saw smoke—or what I thought was smoke—billowing from Big Bertha’s passenger side. The TPMS display lit up like a Christmas tree, showing zero PSI on the passenger-side rear tire.

“Blowout,” I said, already slowing down and looking for a place to pull over. “We just blew a tire.”

—

Here’s the thing about having a tire blow out while towing a fifth wheel: you can’t just stop instantly. You’ve got to ease off the gas, no sudden movements, and pray you find a shoulder wide enough to get fully off the road before some semi truck turns you into a highway statistic.

I found a wide spot about a quarter mile up—one of those scenic pullouts where tourists stop to take photos of the red rocks. Today, it was going to be where we became those people on the side of the road that everyone else drives past thinking, “Glad that’s not me.”

I got us stopped, put on the hazards, and got out to survey the damage. The passenger-side rear tire had completely shredded. And I mean SHREDDED. Pieces of tire were scattered across fifty feet of highway behind us. What was left on the rim looked like someone had taken a cheese grater to it.

“Oh, that’s not good,” I said, which was the understatement of the year.

Lucy came around to look. “Can we fix this?”

“I mean… technically?” I pulled out my phone and Googled “how to change RV tire.” The results were not encouraging. Forums full of people saying things like “just call roadside assistance” and “don’t attempt this yourself unless you have a death wish and proper equipment.”

We had AAA Plus RV coverage—100 miles of towing, which we’d specifically upgraded to after buying Big Bertha. But we were in the middle of southern Utah on a Thursday morning. The wait time, according to the AAA app, was “3-4 hours, possibly longer.”

It was currently 10 AM. It was already 85 degrees and climbing toward a forecasted 98. Sitting on the side of the highway in full sun for four hours sounded like a special kind of torture.

“Let me check something,” I said, walking to the back of the truck.

I popped open the truck’s toolbox and took inventory. When we’d bought Big Bertha, the dealer had thrown in a bunch of “essentials,” which at the time I’d assumed was just sales fluff. But one of those essentials was a heavy-duty bottle jack—the kind rated for 20 tons, which seemed like overkill until right this second. We also had a four-way lug wrench, a rubber mallet (no idea why), and a can of PB Blaster penetrating spray that I’d added myself because I grew up in the Midwest where every bolt is rusty.

And critically, we had a spare tire. A full spare, mounted on a rim, that we’d specifically ordered because the dealer’s default package only came with a “roadside assistance card” instead of an actual spare. That upgrade had cost us $400, which Lucy had questioned at the time.

“See?” I said, pointing at the spare. “Four hundred dollar tire. Best money we’ve spent.”

“You say that about everything we buy right before we need it,” Lucy pointed out, which was fair.

—

Here’s what they don’t tell you about changing an RV tire: everything is heavier than you think, everything is more awkward than you imagine, and you will question every life decision that led you to this moment.

First problem: getting Big Bertha high enough to remove the shredded tire. The bottle jack could lift her, but I needed something solid to put it on—the ground was gravel and dirt, which meant the jack would just sink. I looked around and spotted some flat rocks in the drainage ditch nearby.

“I’m going to stack rocks,” I announced.

“Is that… safe?” Lucy asked.

“Probably not. But neither is sitting here for four hours.”

I built a little platform of flat rocks, set the bottle jack on top, and positioned it under Big Bertha’s frame. Started pumping the jack handle. Up she went, inch by inch, until the shredded tire was off the ground.

Problem two: the lug nuts. Six of them, each one torqued down to what I assume was “gorilla with impact wrench” levels. I sprayed them all with PB Blaster and let it sit for five minutes, which felt like an eternity in the heat.

Lucy had set up our portable folding chairs in the shade under Big Bertha’s overhang and was holding a bottle of water for me. “How’s it going?”

“I’m about to find out if I can actually do this or if I’m just pretending I know what I’m doing.”

I fitted the four-way lug wrench onto the first lug nut and pushed. Nothing. Pushed harder. Nothing. Put my whole body weight into it and—CRACK—it broke loose. Five more to go.

Twenty minutes later, I had all six lug nuts off and was sweating through my shirt despite it only being 90 degrees at this point. The tire came off easier than I expected, probably because half of it was already scattered across Highway 89.

Getting the spare ON was another adventure. The thing weighed at least 80 pounds, and I had to lift it up onto the studs while lining up all six holes perfectly. First attempt: missed completely. Second attempt: got three holes lined up, dropped it. Third attempt: Lucy helped guide it while I lifted, and we got all six studs through.

“We’re a pit crew now,” Lucy said.

“Yeah, the world’s slowest pit crew.”

I threaded the lug nuts back on by hand, then used the lug wrench to tighten them in a star pattern (thanks, YouTube videos I’d watched at 2 AM for no reason). Finally, I lowered the jack, pulled it out, and torqued the nuts down one more time.

The whole operation took about ninety minutes. I was covered in dirt, grease, and sweat. But Big Bertha had a new tire.

—

We limped into Bryce Canyon around 2 PM—three hours later than planned, but under our own power. The campground host took one look at us and said, “Rough drive?”

“Blew a tire on 89,” I said. “Changed it ourselves.”

“You changed an RV tire yourself?” He looked genuinely surprised. “Most people call for service.”

“Yeah, well. Didn’t feel like waiting four hours in the heat.”

He nodded approvingly. “You’ve got a spare now?”

“Nope. Just used our spare. Gotta order a new one.”

“There’s a tire shop in Panguitch, about twenty-five miles back. They do RV tires. Tell ’em Randy sent you.”

That evening, after getting Big Bertha set up and taking the world’s longest shower, Lucy and I sat outside with cold beers and premade sandwiches from the camp store because I was way too tired to cook anything.

“You know what we need?” I said.

“A vacation from our vacation?”

“A second spare tire.”

Lucy laughed. “We need a spare for our spare?”

“After today? Absolutely.”

I pulled up Amazon on my phone and ordered a tire pressure gauge (our TPMS caught the blowout, but I wanted a manual backup), a better breaker bar for removing lug nuts because my shoulders were still sore, and an emergency roadside kit that included flares, triangles, and a high-vis vest because apparently standing on the highway in a gray t-shirt isn’t smart.

The next morning, we drove to Panguitch and got a new spare from Randy’s recommended shop. Guy gave us a fair price—$380 for the tire and mounting—and didn’t even try to upsell us on anything. Also told us our remaining tires looked good, which was a relief.

“How long you folks been RVing?” he asked while mounting the new spare.

“Almost six weeks,” Lucy said.

He grinned. “And you already changed a tire on the side of the road? You’re doing better than most. I’ve seen people who’ve been doing this for years who still call a tow truck for a flat.”

Driving back to Bryce Canyon with two spare tires (one mounted on Big Bertha’s carrier, one strapped down in the truck bed because paranoia), I felt accomplished. Yeah, the blowout sucked. Yeah, I was sore and tired and we’d lost half a day of vacation. But we’d handled it.

“Three disasters, three solutions,” Lucy said, reading my mind.

“Roof leak, dust storm, tire blowout. What’s next? Alien invasion?”

“Don’t even joke about that. You’ll jinx us.”

We spent the next two days hiking around Bryce Canyon, and every time we passed another RV in the parking lot, I’d notice what kind of spare tire situation they had. Lots of them didn’t have spares at all—just roadside assistance stickers. I couldn’t help but think about what would happen if they blew a tire in the middle of nowhere.

Maybe we were doing something right after all.

Or maybe we were just getting really good at surviving our own mistakes and bad luck.

Either way, Big Bertha had three battle scars now: a patched roof from Montana, an awning that had survived Arizona winds, and a brand-new tire from a blowout on Highway 89.

Those scars were badges of honor.

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