Good story, well told.
One of my other expensive hobbies is 4-wheeling out west here and we've
learned to pack enough tools and parts to do 'trail fixes' for most
breakdowns, and we're all pretty good with tires.
Consider carrying to following for long road trips:
* plug kit. Sometimes its actually quicker to patch a hole on the vehicle
than to swap to a spare.
* Air source. 12V compressors work well but are slow. a 9 gallon air tank
charged up is fast enough to re-seat beads sometimes. Many of the 4-wheeling
crowd converts AC pumps to pump air and you can even run air tools on such a
setup.
* Starting fluid. Used to re-seat stubborn beads on tires. Spray a bunch
inside the tire, then spray a trail (fuse!) leading away from the tire.
Light the fuse and run. BOOM. tire is seated.
* spare tires - of course
* inner tubes. even if you use tubeless tires, if you trash a big enough
hole in the tread or sidewall, a tube shoved inside can often get you to a
tire shop for a proper fix.
* valves, caps, and stems.
* tire spoons for removing tires from rims. I've never had much luck with
this myself though.