Gnu, you have it right. I started this afternoon by going by my Goodyear place (I get oil changes there) and priced tires there. The tech said that the tire had a flaw, you could see where a bubble had formed inside the tire and it blew straight out the side. This was like getting my second opinion first. Their tires would have been up around $780 if I bought five (my spare was 10 years old, so though relatively unused it was going to have some drying out or cracking issues).

When I went to the place where I bought the tires I was in their system. I always buy 50,000 or 60,000 mile tires, and these clearly hadn't made it. They gave me a credit of $178 and I bought five tires and the protection plan for $575 this way. Well worth it for the peace of mind on the trip. I agree with ragdall--while I always look at my options when planning a trip like this, it just made sense to put tires on the truck instead of paying money to borrow a car and still have a truck with old tires.

They ran me ragged at work today taking photos for a September Banned Books project. We have a dynamo of a librarian spearheading the project. I'll do the processing as far as correcting color balance and give them to her group to choose and crop and set up their slide show.

Headed to bed early, planning to get up early to walk the dogs and get a little yard work done before the heat sets in.

SRS