Death of a rear tire during the Pandemic 2021

My rear tire was destroyed.  It was  a Schwalbe Smart Sam and riding in low pressure destroyed it.  The sidewalls were not enough to support low pressure riding.  That's okay, because the thread was almost gone.  

Off to the bike shops for tires and they don't have anything tires that are smaller than 2.4 inches.  My hardtail only has enough clearance for tires that are smaller than 2.2  Desperate for replacement tires, I bought a set of gravel tires becasue I thought that they would be good enough.  

I looked at the my new gravel tires when I got home and I decided that those tires won't be mounted with the x-caliber.  The x-caliber is a mountain bike and I want her to remain to be  mountain bike.  I still want big mountain bike tires to do mountain bike stuff.  They may be heavy and don't roll as well as the gravel tires, but that's what I preferred.  I could bring those gravel tires back or save them for the Crockett.  

I went to the second hand market for the tires and I found a set of Specialized GRound Control for sale near me.  They are bascially brand new and the owner wants $80 for the set.  These are pandemic prices and I will be picking them up on Wednesday.  

I will probably selling a schwalbe smart sam 2.1 tire later.  I probably don't need that.