From Vidalia, LA, there are two convenient routes to the Redneck Riviera. Either way, there's a pretty drive through the Homochitto National Forest in Mississippi. Beyond the forest, you can take 98 east through Hattiesburg, MS, and drop down to Mobile, AL, or you can take Hwy 55 south to I-12 to I-10 and go east through Mobile. 98 is a country road with not much traffic and long stretches of nothing but farmland and forest. The other route takes you through Hammond, LA, down to Slidell outside of New Orleans, then along the Gulf Coast.

Either route takes about five and a half hours.

We started later than we wanted on Tuesday, about 2:30 in the afternoon, to arrive in Gulf Shores no later than 8:30 pm. Lyman decided to drive the interstate for variety's sake.

How prescient of him.

So, we're driving along I-10, coming upon Gulfport, MS, about 7:20 pm and the car begins to shudder.

"This road sure is rough," says Lyman. The car shudders more.

"Maybe it's not the road, " says Janis.The car is bouncing along and the Lucy is beginning to fluster.

"It's not the road," says Lyman.

We pull off at the next exit and drive into a truck stop with a large parking area.

I drive loop-the-loops around the lot and feel no shudder, Lyman can see nothing wrong from the ground. Lyman takes the car up the road and feels the shudder again. Yes, it's the tires and it's 7:30 pm in a small southern town on a Tuesday night. Happens to be a truck repair business in the very lot we are in. We ask if they can help, no, they're closing up, but there is a tire repair place at the next exit that's open until 8 pm. It's 7:40.

Back to I-10 with the emergency flashers at about 50 miles an hour.

We pull into Coastal Tires in Long Beach, MS, at about 7:55. There are customers ahead of us, but the tired, uncomfortable pregnant girl in the office assures us that we'll be served. In fact, the place is open until 9. We wait for about an hour. Lyman has the young man look at the two front tires. (All the tires are less than 30,000 miles old.) The young man, husband of the girl in the office, pronounces them shot and replaces them. It's after 9 now. We drive up the road a piece and the shudder is still with us. We turn around and go back to the shop, where our boy is trying to eat a little supper, and have him look at the rear tires. They're shot, too. The boy replaces them as well.

We pay up and Lyman says, "If this doesn't work, I'm coming back and have you change the spare."

The boy laughs and says "We'll do that, too."

At 9:40 we're back on the road to Mobile.

We didn't have to do the spare.

The moral of this story is rotate and balance your radials every 3,000 miles.