Driving story of DOOM #1

Earlier this week I was down in Watertown. On my way down there I started having what I thought was a minor car issue. My mud flap was rubbing against my back driver side tire of my car. Once I got to where I was going I put the flap back in place. It then didn't give me any troubles until I started my trip back to Chippewa Falls. My mud flap was up and to the side again and rubbing against something. It was causing my car to shake at 50 mph and be very noisy compared to usual. Normally when I go 70 it starts to shake somewhat. I really didn't think anything about it. I called my boyfriend and asked him what he thought it might be. I called home and told my mother about it. My older sister called me and I told her about it and she said that it might be that the car is too old. I drive a '96 Oldsmobile. It wasn't until I got a little North of Black River Falls that I pulled over to check it out. To my surprise, I was losing chunks of my tire. My Tire was slowly going to explode. Pieces of my tire was breaking off and spread the length of the interstate from Madison to Black River Falls. I knew that I needed to get home fast or stay where I was and change the tire. I tried to go to the next turn off at the very least, but only went a few feet before my car started shaking. So I was stuck on the interstate a few feet away from mile marker 113. I called my mother again to have her call my father but she didn't pick up the phone. I then called my father's cell phone to see if he would pick up. I told him that I needed help and I was stuck on the interstate. He then started leaving work. I called my work to let them know that I was going to be late and was stuck on the interstate. work was at 4pm I would have had 30 minutes of leeway. I then started clearing out my trunk to get my spare out. I then noticed that there was a piece of my tire in my trunk along with pieces of my car that the tire was taking off. Once I got back into my car I saw that a state trooper showed up to see what was wrong. He was very nice and offered to change my tire. I then called my parents to tell them that a trooper was going to change my tire and to turn back. Turns out they didn't even leave yet. He changed my tire and offered to put air in it. I then followed him to Hixton and got a little less air then what it recommended. He said that it would get me to Eau Claire and then to Chippewa just fine. With that I was then back on the road going 50 mph. Good thing my car is an old person's car that way people don't expect it to go the speed limit anyways. I made it to work and punched in 15 minutes late.