Jellystone RV Park :: Waco, GA :: FL -> KS Trip
Well, I knew this day was coming. It just had to. We can't have a trip without it. Yes, we'd had some "hard" traveling days. Days fraught with traffic jams and tired kids and headaches and stinky dog rear ends. But in my book, those days have challenging moments, but they aren't bad days. I am the black cloud of road trips. You take me, and things are bound to explode, go flat, blow up, or stop working. I'm talking major delays. Major. And now hopefully, we've gotten the bad day out of my system and we can proceed back to Wichita and then onto the PNW with ease.
The day started out alright, a little early in my opinion, but that's really how Royal likes to road trip. We load up the truck with people and dogs and hit the road, without a real destination but with a plan to make it past Atlanta. We joked about how we were probably going to hit Atlanta right at rush hour, and hardy-har-har how this whole trip was full of traffic jams. Stupid, Rachel. Stupid. Never joke about difficulties to come. You'd think I'd learn!
We travel on into Georgia, stop for lunch, and I take a turn at the wheel. Well, when my tank of gas was almost up, I had pounded like 3 bottles of water and I had to go to the bathroom...bad! So, I pull off on this exit where there is nothing but a gas station. A gas station that is "open" but everything is locked up. Right across the parking lot from a motel where I'm pretty sure murders have happened. I really know how to pick 'em. So we proceed to pay at the pump and promise the kids ice cream later. Sam, who normally is nowhere near the gas pumps is standing next to Royal about to jump back in the truck, when Royal grabbed the fuel nozzle it just stars spewing diesel all over the place, and all over the place included Sam's head. Poor puppy. I find some shampoo and start filling up bowls of water and try to give his head a bath. The poor dog was miserable, and for a dog that hates baths and anything to do with water, he stood there nice and still while I continued to scrub and rinse and scrub and rinse. I do the best I can, but figure I'll get some Dawn and wash his head again with dish soap when we got to our camp for the night.
Royal's behind the wheel now, my driving privileges revoked by my bad gas station decision, and a ways down the road it feels like Royal ran something over, but we knew he hadn't. So he pulls over on the next exit and I jump out and inspect our tires - flat tires have happened to us many times before - and I discover this.
An inflated tire with no tread. Our trailer has a bad habit of ripping tread off our tires. This makes tire #3. A metal bracket that supports the wheel well, comes loose and instead of just dropping the screw onto the road, the metal bracket hangs onto the stupid screw and uses it to scalp the tread right off the tire. It's really not very awesome.
We pull over to an RV park right down the road and Wayne and Royal change the tire in record time. I'm not kidding, like maybe 15 minutes. Royal's got the whole system on how to jerry-rig our truck's jack and use it on the trailer down! I was just thankful he wasn't out doing this on the side of the interstate. It makes it much safer for me to take pictures. :)
Sam, was still not acting very happy. He wouldn't drink any water. It was literally 100 degrees outside, because we can't get flat tires if it's not in the triple digits, obviously! And he picked out a new seat in the truck, and smiled for a picture. If we are parked somewhere, he is always out sniffing around and peeing on things. We were at an RV park for goodness sake, lots of room to roam, but he sat in the front seat of the truck the whole time.
On a side note, Sam was already in the dog house because he had gotten into the garbage yesterday and eaten a whole grip load of grapes, so we were keeping on eye on him already before the whole taking a bath in diesel ordeal. And as it turns out when he finally went to the bathroom later this evening, he also had eaten a ziplock bag! Bad dog! Bad! He is feeling much better now, though, so there is that!
With our tire changed and our trusty ole spare tire on, we hit the road thinking we hadn't lost too much time. Not half a mile down the road. Half a mile! The spare tire explodes. Explodes so bad we have people driving up alongside of us to let us know our tire just exploded all over I-75.
It looks like Willow's hair in the morning. :) This is a problem. We are officially out of tires.
Obviously, God was protecting us from something up ahead, because we were not meant to leave Macon, GA for another good hour! We called AAA, because well we have it, and we no longer have any extra tires. They send a tow truck out to get us, since they no longer do tire service. However, the tow truck driver calls me and tells me he only has a 21' bed on the back of his truck. I'm like, "My trailer is 28 feet. That's not going to work" Thanks AAA, thanks. So, I cancel my AAA ticket, because I wasn't going to wait another 30 minutes for them to track down a bigger tow truck, and I find a tire shop a few miles away that will bring us 2 new tires and fix it right there on the side of the road.
Not kidding, this guy's name was Bubba. Bubba is my new best friend. He didn't really like me very much, and he didn't laugh at any of my jokes, but that's ok, because I love Bubba. He fixed both our tires, like way fast, and we were back on the road in about 45 minutes.
As soon as the tires were fixed and reattached and all other tire pressures checked, we stopped and got everybody some ice cream. The kids and the dog did great. They stayed in the air conditioned truck and watched a movie and I made them sandwiches and they didn't complain or whine or ask when we were leaving once. I really have the best traveling kids around! Now, Royal on the other hand did not stay in the air conditioned truck. He had been out in the 100 degree heat changing the first tire, and then the 103 degree heat watching Bubba work his magic on our other tires. The truck with Sam's diesel perfumed head was already pretty smelly, but then Royal got back in the truck and holy smokes, driving down the road, the truck smelled like the inside of a sweaty basketball shoe. It. Was. Unbearable. But what do I do in situations like these? I laugh. Royal scowls. I laugh. What are the chances we blow out 2 tires???? I kept joking with Royal I was trading this trailer in for a new one. He just glared and said he wasn't in the mood for joking and my trailer kept spending his fishing boat money. I laughed. Royal scowled. Eventually he lightened up because the cab of the truck smelled so terrible, there wasn't much else you could do.
I found the closest RV park to Georgia border that I could, that had a pool. The kids love it. It's Jellystone, complete with Yogi Bear. :) They have 2 great pools, and talking McCaws (who scared the crap out of me when I walked into the office because they said "Hello!"), and alligators, and monitor lizards.
We were literally on the road for 11 hours today. 11. That is like twice my limit. We are all pretty fried and I plan on sleeping-in in the morning. I'm not sure what Royal is planning on, but that's my plan! Willow was so tired, she put herself to bed when everybody else was getting ready to go take showers.
Oh! And just for a bonus. One of the cupboard doors decided to come completely off its hinges while we were driving too. That was awesome. The boys fixed it, but still....
