We haven't updated this much lately, sorry. But anyway, we took a trip to Greeneville, TN last weekend for Erika's cousin Christian Scheel's wedding to Heather. We had a full car with me, Erika, her brother Andy, and Annie.
On the way there along I-40, only about 25 minutes from our house, I hit a large metal flange in the road and we got two flat tires on the passenger side. I had been in the fast lane going about 70 mph, I quickly pulled off to the right and onto the shoulder. We're pretty lucky it didn't cause an accident.
Since I pulled off into the tallish grass, and apparently the hole in the rear tire was smaller, only the front tire looked flat. So I proceeded to empty the trunk to get the spare donut tire out, and I made record time and had it changed in under 5 minutes. Then I re-loaded the trunk and we started back out. We got about 10 feet before I realized the rear tire was now also flat. Great.
So We call up AAA and ask for a tow about 4:10. Maybe you know this, but AAA drivers will only take two people along in the tow truck. The 2nd or 3rd AAA phone rep we talked with informed us of this, and offered to call a taxi for us to get the remaining person. We also had trouble with AAA in deciding where to take our car. Apparently, they will only tell you about AAA-affiliated car repair places. I wanted to take the car to Sears, since we were very close to Southpoint Mall, and I thought Sears would be open past 5:00. Well, the lady on the phone refused to give me the number to Sears for several sentences, then finally gave me the number to some other Sears Auto place on the other side of Durham. I also found out that the previous phone rep who said she'd call a taxi for us never did, and we'd have to do that ourselves, but this rep did give us the numbers to two taxi companies close by.
So I call the wrong Sears and they give me the phone number for the right Sears, and we're in luck, they'll be open until 8:00. Then I call up the first taxi company, and it's some funny dispatch number where the person answering is very rude and hangs up on me. I try the second number, and the lady is nicer, but says they don't have any cabs to spare and recommends another taxi company. So I call this third taxi place, and yes, they can get a cab to us on the side of the interstate. She asks roughly where I am, and gets my number for the cab driver to call me back. Several minutes later, the dispatcher lady calls back and informs me that her driver can't call my number, and I should call him. WTF? So anyway, I call him, and he's not too far away, and after briefly explaining to him how the interstate numbering system works, he understands where we are. Good deal.
Now it's about 5:15, and we have to play the waiting game for the taxi and tow truck. Since I'm concerned about 10-year old Andy in the hot sun, we decided that he'd ride with Erika in whatever vehicle got there first, and I'd wait for the other one. He's pretty occupied with his Gameboy and given plenty of water, he doesn't seem to mind much.
Finally the cab shows up about 6:30, and Erika and Andy hop in the cab, and the driver's nice enough to let them take Annie along too (extra tip for him). As soon as they shut the taxi door, the tow truck shows up-wonderful timing! So I help the tow driver get the car onto his roll-back sled and we're off to Sears. He offered to take the car to his company's shop for a better price than Sears, but after checking he found they only had one of the tires we needed.
So we get to Sears, and The others are waiting on me there. Erika's prepped the service guys on what's going on, and they're ready to help us out. Turns out, it's nearly time to get new tires for all the wheels, so we decide to go ahead and do that and get an alignment while we're at it. They say it'll take an hour. So the question is, what to do for an hour at dinner time?
We take a short walk through the parking lot (with Annie) to the "Streets at Southpoint". It's an outside part of the mall, and we hoped the security guys wouldn't mind if Annie came along too. Nobody said a word, except for commenting how cute she is, and kids trying to pet her. The Q-shack we'd planned on eating at and several other shops were boarded up with black-painted plywood. It looked like they were rebuilding that section, but they didn't have any signs mentioning what was going on. I hope the Q-shack returns. So we have to get something to eat from the food court inside and bring it back to Erika who's waiting with Annie outside. We just finish eating and Sears calls that the car's ready. We head back, settle the bill, and we're back on the road about 7:30. We finally made it to Greenevile a while after midnight.
So watch out for big metal flanges on the interstate, especially if you're traveling west on I-40 close to mile marker 268.
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