Gun shy Tundra owner, thought I lost a LBJ

Reading all of the horror stories on these trucks and LBJ's had me jumpy, last Friday it was hot out and I stopped at the store for a bit. I returned to the road before making a 200-mile trip in the tundra and could feel a small shimmy in the front end. It has less than 10K miles on new ball joints done by Toyota but it was still in my head. I got out of town and the shimmy turned into almost a full-on death wobble with the steering wheel bouncing nearly and inch from side to side.
I slowed down and pulled over on the next side road, as I pulled over and hit the gravel I could hear rocks peppering my fender big time which was odd. I walked around to inspect the tire and found a 20" long 3"-6" wide strip of crack sealant tar stuck to the tire. When I parked at the store I must have been on top of the tar and it must have pulled up when I left. It was a huge PITA to pull all of the hot tar off of the tire, it was about 1/2" thick and covered in gravel.
I was fully expecting to find a sheared-off LBJ when I felt the wheel start hopping like that! Very thankful it was a false alarm. After about 20 minutes digging and some sore fingertips the truck drove as good as new.

 

Glad it turned out ok but I would contact Oregon DOT to report and ask what company was working in the area this occurred. They'll give you that name-contact and you can report and ask for compensation in case tire is toast or just for clean up work. I've done this in Texas - the company had no issue taking care of their mistake. Luck.

 

I got it all off and only drove a few miles though town with it on. It wasn't done anytime recently, it must have came from the parking lot of the place I stopped. I just thought it was interesting and figured I'd share, I'm not interested in trying to get any kind of compensation. My tires are perfectly fine.

 

Too bad Toyota didn't coat our frames in that stuff!