Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona (and that was the highight)

6-27-07

Okay, all of you naysayers, here is your chance to gloat. Yesterday (and into early this morning) was horrendous. It started out pretty good. The drive was easier than we expected out of canyon country, and we still had spectacular views.

We also passed through Winslow, Arizona where we stopped for burgers and shakes, and guess what I did?

It was a long driving day, but we were keeping it together. Once we got to Gallup, New Mexico though, things started to unravel. Katie had major blowout that leaked out of her diaper and covered her legs and car seat. Lovely. We decided to wait to change her until we stopped. And then I got off at the right exit, but I inadvertently got back onto the freeway. Seven miles down to the next exit and seven miles back, Katie sat playing with her own, well, you know. When we cleaned her up, it was everywhere. Becky had one bag of trash and one bag of the dirty car seat cover, straps, Katie’s clothes, etc. I dropped Becky and Kit off at Walmart to do some shopping and went to find a laundry. Only then did I realize that Becky had thrown away the wrong bag. We had to buy a new car seat, but it was probably just as well. The other one was old, and I wasn’t looking forward to cleaning it all. Not fun, but the worst is yet to come.

After that we decided to drive into the night to make tomorrow’s drive shorter. I figured that I would just stop at a rest area when I got tired. A little after midnight, we were about an hour outside of Albuquerque when one of rear inside (there are two on each side in the back) tires blew. I called USAA roadside assistance (supposed to be 24 hour), but they tried but couldn’t get anyone to come out until morning. I’ll think I’ll be switching to AAA. Anyway, that took a while, and since we had a full-sized spare, I decided to try it myself. I have changed tires before, but the inside of double tires on an RV seemed a bit out of my league. The jack was a pain, but I finally figured that out, and I thought I had it a couple of times, but I couldn’t get both tires to fit on right together. I finally gave up, and by the time I had the one good tire on (although not straight) so that we wouldn’t be on the jack all night, it was 3:30. I fell asleep around four and woke up at 5:30 to call USAA again. After another huge hassle, by 6:30 they found someone that would come out in about two hours. I again decided to try it myself, and by the light of day (without a flashlight in my mouth), I realized what I had done wrong. I had both tires on the RV in about 15 minutes, and managed to stop the repairman before he had even left.

Not a very fun night, but things could be worse. How does the song go? If you ever want to see a rainbow, you gotta stand a little rain.

Tomorrow will be a better day. I know because it’s really tomorrow night when I’m writing this.