Ouch ... right in the wallet!

Yesterday morning I went outside to do my weekly black water dump and noticed that the right rear tire on our pick up truck was flat. I had mentioned to Rudee earlier this month that I thought the time was fast approaching where we would be needing to replace the truck tires. My plan was to watch for a sale or maybe find a deal and had been keeping an eye on the advertisements. This all changed this morning when I found the truck leaning to one side and decided we better get them now. :-(
I started up the motor home so I could use it's on board air system. I connected my air hose to the air chuck on the motor home and inflated the tire back up. I could not hear any air hissing out and the tire was staying up so I decided I would let it sit for awhile and see if it was holding air enough to drive to a tire store.
Once I was back inside I started calling local tire shops and getting prices and availability of tires. Our truck has 18" wheels which, I found out, were an option on our model (17" were standard). The 18's would be a little harder to find in stock and were quite a bit more expensive then the 17's ..... geez! I finally found two tire stores in Rapid City that had them on hand and could mount them today. Both places offered the same brand (Cooper) and model of tire but the place that had "bargain" in their name were over $100 higher, this was sure no "bargain" to me. :-)
We ended up getting an appointment with Dale's Tire for early in the afternoon. I figured this gave me enough time to put on the spare if the tire was flat again. I told Rudee to "get ready, I'm taking you into the big city today". :-)
Back outside I checked the tire and it was still holding air according to my trusty tire gauge so we headed to town. We had several errands we could take care of before and after our tire appointment so we made the most of our "trip to the city" :-)  We stopped by Rudee's Cardiologist's office to pick up a new prescription for her since the medicine they prescribed was only for 30 days. The pills are working pretty good so we needed to get at least another 90 day supply to get her back to Indiana for another check up. We got the new script and had a couple of others to refill so the next stop was the pharmacy to drop them off and then we had time for a quick lunch before our tire appointment.
We arrived at Dale's about 15 minutes early and I expected we would have to wait for a while since they were obviously a very busy place. Todd, our salesman, was very nice and said they were expecting us and he had already gotten the tires from their off site warehouse and could get us right in. We sat in their very comfortable waiting room and Rudee even got to watch her favorite soap opera while we waited. It only took them about 30 minutes to mount and balance all four tires and we were on our way. The tires were a big hit to our budget but I feel a lot more comfortable knowing that Rudee shouldn't have any trouble with them on our trip home. Plus finding new tires out in the middle of nowhere while you are sitting on the side of the road is not a fun (or inexpensive!) experience.
We stopped at Wal Mart because you can't go to town without stopping at the Wal Mart. I think it is a law that, as a full time RVer, you have to stop at Wal Mart in every town you stay in or face heavy fines. :-)
We stocked up on groceries and then drove to Walgreens and got our medicine before heading back home. All in all, a pretty expensive day. I'll keep you posted.