MartyS
01-06-2008, 09:23 PM
a whole nuther story in itself.
DD’s car is only two years old, and the tires don’t look all that bad, so off we go down I 4 to hit the Florida Turnpike. We get up above 65 and the steering shimmies a little. We’ll stop somewhere and get it checked out, maybe rotate the tires. Stopping in Gainesville, a tire shop guy looked at it and said rotating wouldn’t help. We will just go a little slower. Just as it was getting good and dark, about ten miles from Tallahassee, the right front tire starts falling apart. It’s not flat, and it’s a real dangerous and dark place to change a tire, so we limp to the next exit a few miles away. We pulled into a gas station and started changing the tire. We are not in a good area. People around us are watching us, a few of them coming around to talk to us, not really offering help. I get a feeling like a shipwreck survivor clinging to a piece of wreckage and sharks circling, bumping into him to see if he’d make a good meal. I got that little dinky doughnut spare tire on the car and we were out of there. A few miles down the road, there is a big wreck on our side of the highway, involving 4 or 5 cars. The cars are in the ditches on both sides of the highway, emergency vehicles all over the place. If we hadn’t had to change the tire, we might have been involved. Sometimes, annoying delays are blessings. We definitely have angels watching over us. In Tallahassee, we look for a WalMart to get a tire, since all the other tire stores will be closed by now. By the time we find it, it is 7:30 pm and the tire center closed at 7. Getting a tire is now not an option. The nearest city west is Pensacola, about 200 miles and 3 hours away. I know you are not supposed to go faster than 45 or go more than 50 miles on a temporary spare, and I don’t want to offend anybody, I hope I am wrong, but I had such a bad feeling about that city that I was willing to take a chance on getting stuck in the middle of nowhere than stay there. On to Pensacola. With both hands on the wheel, I was praying non stop for the next 3 hours. God says that if we lack wisdom, we can just ask Him and he’ll gladly give it to us, no problem, so I asked. We made it to Pensacola, thank you, Father, pulled into a gas station to fill up and keep heading west. I was determined to get home by morning. I asked the attendant how far Mobile was, that we were traveling on a spare and she gave me a blank stare like I was nuts. A man coming up to the counter to pay for something chimed in: “you don’t want to break down in Mobile in broad daylight, much less the middle of the night, Mobile’s an awful rough town, you could wind up dead”. I looked out the window and there was a Holiday Inn Express and a Ruby Tuesday’s across the street, it’s 11 pm, maybe we’ll stay here for the night and get a new tire in the morning… wisdom. We feel a lot better about being in Pensacola. Nice people. Saturday morning we get up and look for a tire place. Found a Firestone on Davis Hwy, I think. They tell me that the other tires are just as bad as the messed up one. They have one tire in stock, but can have three more in about an hour, we hate to spend a lot of $$ on the road, but if we get the one tire and then have a blowout on those rough Louisiana roads, we are back in the same situation again. We get new rubber on all four corners. Wisdom. We left about 1:00 on I 10 west toward Mobile. Goodbye Pensacola, thanks for the hospitality and the safe harbor, God bless y’all. Fairly un -eventful rest of the way home, glad we came this way, south Louisiana’s great, I especially liked the bridge over the Mississippi in Baton Rouge – spectacular. We headed north on I 49 out of Lafayette and then hung a left at Shreveport, and then there it was. That sign. Welcome to Texas Sweet Mother Texas. I know we have 3 more hours to go before we get to the house, but we’re home. DD really wants to go back and do the CP again, so she probably will. She’s a seasonal CM now, but she’s got the bug. She still wants to try out for a character next time. Will I drive out there with her again, I mean, she’s in her 20’s? Yep, Daddies don’t just love their children every now and then, it’s a love without end, Amen.
DD’s car is only two years old, and the tires don’t look all that bad, so off we go down I 4 to hit the Florida Turnpike. We get up above 65 and the steering shimmies a little. We’ll stop somewhere and get it checked out, maybe rotate the tires. Stopping in Gainesville, a tire shop guy looked at it and said rotating wouldn’t help. We will just go a little slower. Just as it was getting good and dark, about ten miles from Tallahassee, the right front tire starts falling apart. It’s not flat, and it’s a real dangerous and dark place to change a tire, so we limp to the next exit a few miles away. We pulled into a gas station and started changing the tire. We are not in a good area. People around us are watching us, a few of them coming around to talk to us, not really offering help. I get a feeling like a shipwreck survivor clinging to a piece of wreckage and sharks circling, bumping into him to see if he’d make a good meal. I got that little dinky doughnut spare tire on the car and we were out of there. A few miles down the road, there is a big wreck on our side of the highway, involving 4 or 5 cars. The cars are in the ditches on both sides of the highway, emergency vehicles all over the place. If we hadn’t had to change the tire, we might have been involved. Sometimes, annoying delays are blessings. We definitely have angels watching over us. In Tallahassee, we look for a WalMart to get a tire, since all the other tire stores will be closed by now. By the time we find it, it is 7:30 pm and the tire center closed at 7. Getting a tire is now not an option. The nearest city west is Pensacola, about 200 miles and 3 hours away. I know you are not supposed to go faster than 45 or go more than 50 miles on a temporary spare, and I don’t want to offend anybody, I hope I am wrong, but I had such a bad feeling about that city that I was willing to take a chance on getting stuck in the middle of nowhere than stay there. On to Pensacola. With both hands on the wheel, I was praying non stop for the next 3 hours. God says that if we lack wisdom, we can just ask Him and he’ll gladly give it to us, no problem, so I asked. We made it to Pensacola, thank you, Father, pulled into a gas station to fill up and keep heading west. I was determined to get home by morning. I asked the attendant how far Mobile was, that we were traveling on a spare and she gave me a blank stare like I was nuts. A man coming up to the counter to pay for something chimed in: “you don’t want to break down in Mobile in broad daylight, much less the middle of the night, Mobile’s an awful rough town, you could wind up dead”. I looked out the window and there was a Holiday Inn Express and a Ruby Tuesday’s across the street, it’s 11 pm, maybe we’ll stay here for the night and get a new tire in the morning… wisdom. We feel a lot better about being in Pensacola. Nice people. Saturday morning we get up and look for a tire place. Found a Firestone on Davis Hwy, I think. They tell me that the other tires are just as bad as the messed up one. They have one tire in stock, but can have three more in about an hour, we hate to spend a lot of $$ on the road, but if we get the one tire and then have a blowout on those rough Louisiana roads, we are back in the same situation again. We get new rubber on all four corners. Wisdom. We left about 1:00 on I 10 west toward Mobile. Goodbye Pensacola, thanks for the hospitality and the safe harbor, God bless y’all. Fairly un -eventful rest of the way home, glad we came this way, south Louisiana’s great, I especially liked the bridge over the Mississippi in Baton Rouge – spectacular. We headed north on I 49 out of Lafayette and then hung a left at Shreveport, and then there it was. That sign. Welcome to Texas Sweet Mother Texas. I know we have 3 more hours to go before we get to the house, but we’re home. DD really wants to go back and do the CP again, so she probably will. She’s a seasonal CM now, but she’s got the bug. She still wants to try out for a character next time. Will I drive out there with her again, I mean, she’s in her 20’s? Yep, Daddies don’t just love their children every now and then, it’s a love without end, Amen.