Signs

Monday, October 3, 2011 – Update

I have been doing laundry for so many days now. I can’t even fathom how much laundry I have washed, dried and carried up 40 steps. Down 40 steps, then up 40 steps, back down, back up, up, down, up, down. We donated 19 bags of clothes, linens and other laundry type items. I wanted to take a picture so bad because it was an amazing pile. But, the kids must have gotten a hold of my camera, because the batteries died as I was trying to snap the picture.

Anyways, we finally got the house emptied around 1am. As we started loading up the car with the kids, the sky opened up and poured. It felt like the state was sad that we were leaving. Then we had to make one last stop to storage and a quick trip to Wal-mart, so it was 2:30am before we were on the road. About 5am Bill stopped in Jersey for a 2 hour nap. From that point on it was a smooth ride…

until…

we hit North Carolina and then it started.

First, as we were driving down the road his window made this weird noise and then dropped. We just looked at each other like “WTF!” So we had to make an hour… hour and a half (give or take), pit stop. This wasn’t major… just annoying, frustrating even.

When we hit South Carolina we decided to pull off for a few hours for more sleep.

The baby all rested wanted to play. So I let her play by my feet and fell asleep. Mistake. She cleared the change off the cup holder and put it in the ac vent which was discovered the next morning. Then she woke me up because she was stinky. This was fine. However, in my sleepiness I didn’t realize she was stinky until it was too late. Little pebbles flew all across the floor. So, then I got the bright idea to fling them outside with a piece of paper, then turned around to walk to the bathroom and realized I poopie trapped my path.

–Laughs- Poop pelts everywhere.

Went back to sleep for a while, Bill managed to get 5 hours in that stretch but the slight cold I have been fighting off for the last 2 weeks finally caught up to him. He woke up feeling like a turd. So we decided to make our way to a gas station to fuel up and grab some cold medicine.

Along the way, we hit a road soup puddle. A nasty road soup puddle too and back on the road we were. I’m not really sure how long after that point it took until our tire blew because I had fallen asleep.

So there we were on the side of the road at 4:30am in South Carolina about the 41 mile marker. 5 miles in any direction from anything.

Thank God, Mom hooked us up with a cell phone before we got on our trip. We made a few phone calls, and with no possibility of money becoming available until after 7 am, we decided to sleep. About 7am we get a phone call from Mom, telling us that she managed to locate a tow company. Hooray. She even said that they were like 2 miles from us at that time and then our phone died in mid-sentence. Okay. Located the car charger… “Unauthorized User.” Which all I could think was “You must be kidding.” So we just sat there again like “WTF!”

Around 8am Bill finally decided he could no longer just sit there and tried to walk back to the last exit we passed which was like 3 miles back, then he walked down the ramp to discover NOTHING!!!! So he came back disappointed. Then he tried to wave down someone, anyone for like 30mins. Finally, I grabbed the baby and stood beside him. Within 10mins someone stopped and about 5mins after that the tow truck arrived.

Really a nice guy. His name was Ron.

So Ron towed us back to his shop where we learned we were within 8 miles of Wal-mart. So they took Bill to Wal-mart where we had bought our tires at before we left. We had bought their insurance for road hazards; the only issue is you must take your tire back to Wal-mart to have it replaced.

BLAH!

Meanwhile, I was lucky enough to get to hang out at the shop… which was wicked B-o-r-i-n-g!

So while we waited…

I decided to take the kids outside to play to kill time. While wondering around their shop, I came across this old sign.

Which was totally true at the time.

Finally they were back, and it took like 30 seconds to put the tire back on. $198 and we were back on the road. Did I mention we started this trip with about $300 + $250 received on Tuesday. At this point, we have enough to fuel up 2 more times.

Anyways, Gabbie who was super tired from the stop quickly passed out.

Again pretty much a smooth ride…

until we hit Florida.

As it had taken most of the day just to get there, being already like 7pm and we were still at least an hour or more away; we pulled off to eat with our final $10.

As we are having our meal, an older gentleman came into the restaurant. He smiled as he introduced himself to my family.

Made jokes and had all the kids giggling. He pulled Bill aside and asked for our change. Just whatever was in our pocket. It wasn’t much. Maybe a little over a dollar but we gladly handed it off. Loaded up the car and was back on the road. Only to realize about 10mins later that we had to cross the skyway bridge where there is a $1 toll.

Are you seeing the irony here? –laughs-

So then we found ourselves stuck looking for an ATM in a town we haven’t been in… in about 5 years. Another 30mins wasted, we scored our toll and again was back on the road… for about a whole 5mins.

1 hour from our destination the pulley from our power steering snapped and flew off (more like crumbled) and we over heated instantly… Done.

At that point Bill just started laughing. What a trip. Seriously.