I started this journey on the outskirts of Atlanta, Ga. My first stop was the USA-S Convention in St. Louis, Mo. This is about a 7.5 hour drive, but this day was quite longer than that…
As I was about to be gone for about 6 weeks, it was only fair to start the day by taking the dog out to the dog park for a bit, then come home, pack and leave. Well, it turns out, packing for a 6 week+ trip, including some camping gear just in case, can take a while. On top of that, trying to set up a new computer and make sure files were backed up prior to leaving added some time as well. So, while the goal was to leave home before 11am, I hit the road at around 1:30pm.
Nothing to be too worried, though. Since I was going from EDT to CDT, I was going to gain an hour, so could still easily get to the Convention hotel prior to 9pm, even with a couple stops along the way to stretch my legs. That plan went really well until about 3.5 hours into the trip, when one of my rear tires decided to blow out.
I was able to pull to the side of the road, and the first thought I had was “I just had a tire blowout at 70mph, and pulled to the side of the road safely. If anything, I gotta be thankful.” It only took me about 10min to put my spare on, though I noticed it was quite low. Turns out, the spare had been upside down underneath the car, so while I thought it had been checked on my last oil change, it was completely flat, so when I tried to get back on the road, it started coming off the wheel!
So, stranded with a tired blown and another flat, I had to call for roadside assistance. For reasons I can’t quite understand, the dispatcher would not actually send a tow truck my way until she know for sure there was a tire shop with my tires nearby. That search took well over an hour, and by the time the request went in, the tow truck was going to take another hour to reach me! To make it even better, all tires shops around me were closing within the next 30-40min.
At this point, when I was just about ready to give up on completing this trip, a good soul pulled off on the side of the road to see if I needed some help. He agreed to take my spare, drive it to a nearby gas station to fill it up, and drive it back. Within 15min, I was ready to get back on the road!
I drove about 45miles to a tire shop on a spare tire, holding my breath that nothing else was going to happen. After another 1.5h, I had 2 new tires and was finally ready to get going. I arrived in St. Louis close to midnight, much latter than I hoped for, but still arrived prior to the start of Convention, all thanks to one good soul stopping to help me!
I mentioned this before, but this is a story about gratitude. Yes, things went wrong, but it only took one person to save my day, and that one person drove by! Also, this is a story about checking your spares before hitting the road – I learned that lesson the hard way!
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