The Bumpy Ride Home and Lessons from the Road

We left Colorado the day after my birthday and decided to head east via Texas.   Unfortunately, Barley developed a very rough sounding cough the night of my birthday. The next morning when we woke up he was coughing every 3 to 5 minutes. Early on the 13th we chose to go to a veterinary clinic in  New Mexico to have him seen. The doctors office was willing to get him in right away and found out that he had an upper respiratory infection. Poor pup!

After the doctors we got on the road to try to make the most of that day for driving.  About an hour later both Joe and I noticed a loud knocking sound coming from the driver side tire. We quickly pulled off the road and started to look for a mechanic. The first shop we came to didn't have any time for us that day, so they recommended another place down the road.  When we got to the second place Joe and the mechanic did a drive around the block to diagnose the problem. Unfortunately, the mechanic didn't know what the problem was, but was able to say, "it sounds pretty bad".  This, of course, worried both of us. We were sitting in a small town in Texas that neither of us could tell you the name of still, and car trouble is never welcomed. I should mention that the day before we got new tires put on the back of the car.  This was something we were hoping to do before leaving Florida, but time restraints didn't allow us to make it happen. So, before heading home, we got them done. Now sitting on the side of the mechanic shop waiting to hear the bad news, I am saying prayers and hoping for the best.  After some time, the mechanic came out and told us that the lug nuts had not been screwed on to the tire!  Somehow, we had driven for almost 2 hours and the tire had not come off of the car.  To me it seems like a full-fledged miracle that we had not been an accident. The mechanic shop sent us on our way free of charge, and with insanely grateful hearts for our safety and savings. We managed to drive another eight hours that day, making it about 20 minutes away from Louisiana.

The next morning we got up with a small hope that we could make it home to Florida; we were about 13 1/2 hours away.  Unfortunately, we didn't get on the road till about 10 AM, making our chances of an arrival home a whole lot less likely.  Nonetheless, we packed up the car for was what was going to be one of our last times, and started driving. After about 10 minutes on the road we smelled something burning, and saw smoke coming from the hood. "No!  How could this be?" we said to each other.  Joe quickly pulled off the road and tried to check things out under the hood. He looked at the oil, and it was good to go. He checked the transmission fluid- also good to go.  This was bad, really bad. At this moment, neither of us had much of a cell phone signal, and I had no data left on my phone (a product of being a passenger for over 7800 miles). The shop that Joe managed to pull up was close by to us.  We drove there, praying the whole way as the car smoked.  When we arrived the shop was closed. In a town that felt like the middle of nowhere Texas, or was it Louisiana?, things began to feel gloomy.

We found another shop about 3 miles away and drove there. We pulled up to find it, too, was closed.  How is it that at 1 o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon everything is closed? This town was dead.  Before driving any farther, I started calling some of the other numbers in the town. There were two more. The first number went to a quick disconnected line sound: do, do do...dread! The last one was our only hope.  There was a answer on the other line. I quickly described the situation to the man,  but he let me know that their shop did not do auto-service, yet only sold auto-parts. I asked him where I could find a mechanic in town, and he said that a new place had just opened up called A Firm Foundation.  He began to give me directions, which made no sense to me in this little unfamiliar town, but I tried to pay attention with everything in me. When we got off the phone, I looked up to the left and there it was in the next parking lot over: the shop he had just told me about. 

We pulled the car over to the shop, and we were quickly greeted by a little family of four. It was an older man in his 60s, a woman not too much younger, a little boy, and a grandfather.  The little boy and the woman quickly took an interest in Barely, while the two gentlemen chatted with Joe about the issues we were having.  Within 10 minutes they had diagnosed the issue, fixed it, and offered us to join them at church that night.  They charged us nothing! Trying to offer them cash with no avail, and apologizing that we couldn't stay around for church that evening, we went on our way. Wow, are we so blessed!?!?The rest of the day went OK, we had had a serious setback in time, and no idea where we would stay that night. Finally when around 8:30 PM hit, Barley and I started to get antsy (Joe could've driven forever if it wasn't for us).

I had talked about wanting to get pie in Alabama, because my parents had done that years ago, and had a really funny story that went with it. When we crossed through Alabama, we decided to try to find a diner, and re-create the pie moment that my parents had. We drove for miles and miles through the stage with no sign of a diner.  It was getting late, and we were losing hope. We ate at Arby's :(.
While that doesn't seem worthy of a frowny face,  we tried about six different exits to make it work. This was just a sign of what was to come.

For the next two hours, pulling off at almost every opportunity we could we tried to get a hotel. Grumpy and uncomfortable from sitting in the car all day, things felt worse than they had the whole trip. There was nowhere to camp, and nowhere to sleep. We drove until about midnight, when we finally found a sub-par Red Roof Inn.  Within 20 minutes everyone was asleep. 

The next day we realized we had made it to Florida!  With still about 6 1/2 hours to drive, we knew we could make it home!  This gave us some time to reflect on lessons we learned on the road:

1)  Time never moves at the pace you think it should.  Somehow life all works out beautifully, so leave time expectations and embrace things how they go. 

2)  People are nice and generous. Be that way with others.
3)  Playing outside is so important
4)  Everyone everywhere drives awfully. 

5)  This country has a LOT of open spaces.
6)  Travel regularly, it's good for the soul!

Thank you all for sharing in this journey! It ended up being 26 days of incredible adventures with my puppy and my husband by my side. Peace and love to you all! Trisha

*neither of us had it in us to take a selfie after 3 days of helish driving, so I added some of my favorite selfies from times past to give something fun to look at!