Like a lot of families, every summer we go visiting the relatives. I spend the last few weeks of school sorting and packing, and trying to limit what the kids take. We need to get it all back home and still have enough to keep them from getting bored. This year we had the added pleasure of bring one of our cats with us. She started needing medicine every day, and she'll hide whenever someone who's not family comes into the house. So much for leaving her at home in a friend's care.
Departure day finally arrives, after it's own set of delays. The evening before we're finally ready to start, the trunk is packed, the kids are ready, the cat's things are ready, the food for the trip is ready, and Hubby gets a call about a major problem at work. He spends the next 13 hours fixing it, and the trip is delayed another day. The next day we actually start. After about two hours of driving, Hubby is having problems staying awake, and I take over driving. Everything seemed to be going fine until just outside of Indy.
The car started telling me the front right tire was low. We found a gas station, and checked the tire. It was just fine. I should have checked the back tires. A few more miles down the road, and the tire was toast. So, we're on the side of the interstate with the trunk unpacked, and the kids finding all sorts of 'interesting' things on the ground by the car. Hubby puts the 'donut' on and I'm trying to figure out how to repack everything, including the blown tire. Somehow we manage not to leave anything behind. We drive into Indy and find a car repair shop. They direct us to a tire place, who doesn't have what we need. They direct us to a second tire shop, who also doesn't have what we need. They send us on to a third place, where we can finally get a new tire. The trunk is emptied again. The kids, the cat, and all our stuff is hauled into the store and we camp there for the next two hours.
After the tire was fixed - and the trunk, kids and cat repacked - Hubby asked for directions back to the interstate. It turns out that all our driving from shop to shop put us less than 1000 yards from where we changed the tire by the side of the road. Hubby joked if we'd had GPS, he would have found the right shop the first time and he could have just walked the tire over to get it fixed. That way the kids and I wouldn't have had to get dragged all over.
Hmm...Waiting a couple of hours in a car on the side of the road with kids and a cat. Maybe its just as well we didn't have a GPS.
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