Day one. Trip to Big Bend NP

It has been nearly a year since our last trip in our TM 3023. That trip was from Texas City TX to Denver and back. The 2500 mile trip was our first ever camping trip and it went without incident.
Last Sunday May 6th we left Texas City heading west to Big Bend NP. I was planning to do the 600 mile trip with a one night stop over at KOA Junction TX about 115 mile west of San Antonia.
About 1 hr outside of Junction I could smell burning rubber I glanced at my side mirror to see pieces of rubber flying out from the wheel into the center of I-10 and then the TM started sinking over to the left side - it was my first tire blow out. It could not happen at a worst place - we where high up in the hills and the side shoulder was narrow and also had a guard rail.

The traffic was zooming past on a busy I-10 - I waited for a lull in the traffic, opened the door and I quickly bailed out of my Oldsmobile Bravado 2002.
I quickly assessed the scene
1) Very close to the road.
2) I could not get access to the spare as I was only 3 inch away from the
guard rail.
3) To take the wheel off, my person (me) would be standing/kneeling in
the inner lane of I-10

The situation did not look good. I re-assessed the scene - and thinking to my self - if only I could remove the lower guard rail I could get access to the spare! I did a closer inspection of the Guard rail -YES the rail is bolted on. I started to remove the guard rail bolts. Before I had the guard rail removed two Good-Samaritans stopped to assist. One had a spare red shirt and the other had a big jack with wheels (the ones you see at the tire shops). Working as a team we got the tire changed out. Unfortunately I could only get about 40 lbs air pressure in the spare tire before the Olds air compressor was over heated.
I traveled several miles west on I-10 and pulled into an Exxon station to add air to the spare. To my horror the valve stem started to leak and the tire would only hold about 40 lbs of air pressure. I decided to continue to KOA Junction (at a slow speed) stopping every 20min (checking the temp and pressure on the tire).

Day 2, to be continued.......