Thanks for that real life experience. Last July, some friends took a loaded car trailer to a Michigan event. By the time they'd gotten to Flint, they'd put three of the four tires on the trailer ater leaving Dallas (with a good spare and a slightly under capacity hydraulic jack). On the way back, the fourth one went. By that time, they had the "pit crew" deal down so it only took about 13 minutes to do the job.
Another friend pulled a loaded open car trailer to San Antonio last October. Same thing, except out in the boondocks of the Texas Hill Country (where cell phones have dead spots due to the terrain) and wide two lane main highways, generally. Others in that club were caravanning with him and helped in the search for a trailer tire.
In ALL cases, the tires looked good and were not perceived to be a threat to a safe and easy trip. They were not overloaded and had sufficient air pressure too.
All things considered, you were fortunate in how your situation worked out. By nature, I suspect, we do tend to neglect the tires on our vehicles more than we might like to admit to, when compared to other aspects of the vehicle's operation. Seems like I saw a recent study that many vehicles on the road today always had regular oil/filter changes but very little attention paid to tires and their pressure.
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