Tire Shopping

If I was to continue my road trip adventure, I needed a new spare tire.

First I visited several local llanteras (tire shops). At each one, the routine was that we would poke around among the old tires lying in the driveway or out back on junked cars, looking for a size match. Not much luck. At one point, we did find a tire matching my desired size, but it was so trashed there were only cobblestone-like bumps where the tread should be. I didn't think it was likely to hold up.

Finally I made my way back up to Santa Rosalía, but the Bridgestone tire shop, "Autopartes Santa Fe", was almost entirely depleted of stock! The shelves were almost completely bare. This was the largest tire shop around for 200 miles. The sales guy apologized, explaining something I didn't quite understand about a lack of tires there for the past four years. Finally I decided to just buy a much smaller street tire that would fit my 16" rims. This mismatched tire couldn't be used for long if I used my 4x4, but at least I had a chance of rolling out any potential trouble if I did destroy another tire. 27.3343, -112.2635