Born Free on Tatooine...

[Roger H]

The Millennium Falcon pursuing Jabba the Hut's sand barge on Tatooine... (ok maybe not...)

Ok, what it really is a shot of my 32RQ at Sand Mountain in Nevada. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Mountain_(Nevada) But it sure sounded good!

Jabba's sand barge was actually built in the sand dunes of Buttercup in Imperial County, CA c.1981. I found it quite by accident out there because they left it for some time after the completion of the movie. This shot isn't mine, but somewhere I've got some photos of the actual sand barge from that trip.

[jeleuen]

How did you not get stuck in the sand?

[Roger H]

I have some mighty fine drive tires! I bought drive tires with an all-terrain tread rather than putting steering tires on all six wheels. I'm very pleased with the traction that they've provided in a variety of circumstances so far.

They were actually the least expensive tires i could find. They're Hercules branded 225/70r19.5s, a Chinese tire distributed by Cooper. I am leery of Chinese tires in general, but my local tire shop has sold them for some time now, and their experience with them has been good. They were about $200/tire, about $100/tire less than any of the other major branded tires. I thought a $600 savings was pretty significant. We'll see if it was false economy as they age. I probably wouldn't have bought them for a car, but I replace motorhome and trailer tires about every five years regardless of tread wear. So far, with about 7,000 miles on them, I've been pleased with their performance and handling. We'll see how they do over the next four years' use.