Road trip disaster – take 2

So the Romance Writers of American conference was awesome–as it always is–and we had a wonderful time.

And then we drove home. In Dave.

First, I feel like I should defend Dave. He has been much maligned in the past several months–much of that is his own damn fault. The issue we had on the way home was not probably not.

You can be the judge.

On the way there, the drive took exactly 12 hours from the moment we hit the highway till we made the front desk for check in. Of course, that meant we only stopped to buy gas, pee, and grab a snack. We never stopped for longer than 10 minutes. We were highly motivated to get there. I’m the first to admit I am not good in the car for very long. “Are we there yet?” was mentioned about 7,000 time between Ava and I.

The way home was going exactly like we anticipated. We made excellent time through Texas and New Mexico. We even beat a thunder-storm and smallish haboob-like sand storm by the skin of our teeth. Excitement grew when we hit Arizona. I was keeping my eyes wide for a saguaro. We were exhausted.

A half-hour from home, the shit hit the fan.

Interstate-10 had been littered with shredded tires from Texas to Arizona. Then there was one right in the middle of the road and there was nothing we could do to avoid running it over. If I could have swerved without killing us, I certainly would have. Pretty quickly after that my

Once upon a time this was a successful tire

front right tire made a terrible racket.

The emergency lane was terribly small and the berm dropped off at an angle. The traffic was buffering Dave and it felt like he was going to fly off the road. We all piled out of the car and found this.

There were giant red ants from like a horror movie.

And then we decided we needed to pee. Because of course we did. Ava offered me a handful of Starbucks napkins and directed me to the ditch. I declined as there was a wire fence and don’t you know that damn thing would have been electrified. That is not what I want my obituary to read, “Died by electrifying herself while urinating.”

AAA was called and that went POORLY. They were called again, this time by one of the calmer passengers. We were assured that a tow truck would be coming.

And nothing.

So  we called again. We were told the driver had been dispatched and would be there in 10 minutes.

And nothing.

Finally the driver called to find out where we were. The AAA operator have him the wrong mile marker by 15 miles. Yes, that happened.

Can you believe you have to pay for air?

So eventually the man showed up in a giant tow truck. John had an epic mustache. It was…impressive.

There was immediate trouble because we had to unload half the luggage onto the side of the road in order to get to the spare tire release. Then he had to figure out how to jack up the SUV since the pavement was so uneven. Wood was placed beneath the floor jack and up Dave went. The tire came off. The spare was placed on the lug bolts.

Then BOOM – Dave fell off the jack.

Really.

Eventually the tire was changed. And the shredded, mangled tire was then shoved in the back of the SUV and the stuff on the pavement was piled into the back seat with Ava.

And then we discovered the battery was dead.

Our mustachioed hero

Really.

So John jumped the battery. He told me to drive slowly to the nearest gas station because the spare was low on air.

We limped onward, delighted to see that John was following along behind in the giant truck, to the closest gas station–about 10 miles away. John put 28 pounds of air in my tire. We told John to thank his wife for us for being such a nice guy, and TWO AND A HALF HOURS LATER WE WERE BACK ON OUR WAY!

Our 12 hour car ride took 15.

This is what we’ve decided: We’re never doing a road trip ever again.

Ever. Again.

Our friend Kilian described it best – we’re road trip kryptonite.