Too Much Adventure

By:  Sandra Elzie

About six months ago, Debbie Kaufman and I jointly wrote a blog article where we told about going up to Elijay, GA with our husbands to look at land with the thought of building log cabins in the future.  For those of you who don’t remember the article or never saw it, I’ve provided a link ….but for those who remember the article, you might also remember my husband’s now-famous and over-used question to Debbie, “Where’s your sense of adventure?”   Well, on that day we were going down dirt roads and crossing a creek on two 4×6 boards, and in general, we ladies were shaking our heads and desperately trying to get on our knees in the backseat to pray that we’d get home safely.

After such a long intro to my blog article, I’ll now get started on explaining how it’s possible to have more adventure in one day than is good for a body.

Hubby & I recently slipped away to Florida for a week, camping in our 39′ fifth-wheel travel trailer.  We had a wonderful time together at the beach, but, alas, all good things must end and the morning came to hook up and head 384 miles home.

We left at 8:00 am and within 45 minutes, my husband noticed in his rear-view mirror that something was wrong with one of the trailer tires.  We were near an off-ramp, so we pulled into a gas station parking lot, jacked up the 14,000 pound trailer ( yes, 7 tons) to get the blown tire off & to put on the spare–which we were carrying in the bed of the truck but because of the cab-over style of a fifth-wheel, we couldn’t get to it without taking the tailgate off.  With me so far?  Great.  The saga continues.

Hubby, wise man that he is, said we were going to stop and buy another spare—and 40 minutes and $135.00 later, we hit the road again.  By-the-way, we bought the tire dealer’s last tire of that size.  There isn’t much call for such large trailer tires, so most places don’t carry them.

About two hours later, we’re going 70 MPH in the middle of three lanes of I-75 when someone goes by us, frantically pointing to the the tires of the trailer.   We couldn’t believe it—another one?  We thanked God that we had  bought another tire while we pulled to the side of the freeway.  Since it was on the off-road side, hubby changed the tire.  By now I’m really feeling sorry for the poor dear—we’re getting too old for this kind of stuff.  He even remarked that this was beginning to be just a little too much fun for one day.

After a brief discussion with me asking if we should risk trying to drive home with out a spare, my dear darling other half pipes up with.  “Where’s your sense of adventure?”  That really should have been our clue to stop joking around and go buy another tire, but we figured there was no way we’d have three blowouts in one day.

Now, I bet everyone reading this can see where this is going.  Yep, about 65 miles from home, about four miles below Macon, GA, we hear a pop.  I must thank my husband for keeping to himself whatever  naughty words might have been running through his head at that moment.  We had our third flat tire of the day and  this one was on the driver’s side…and if you’re familiar with how busy AND how many semi trucks run on I-75, then you know our delimma…not to mention that it’s now 4:15 on a Friday afternoon and we don’t have a spare.

After calling eleven companies to see if they had our size tire, we finally found a friend of a dealer who said he could recommend someone and they would even deliver it and change the tire.  Halalauah!!!  We asked him to bring two so we’d also have a spare…which ended up being a smart move.  So, 4 hours and $500.00 later, we’re ready to hit the road again.  In the meantime, the place where we store our trailer had closed and since our home association doesn’t allow parking trailers in our driveways or even on the street, we needed a place to park overnight.  I put a call in to two of my blog sisters who live in the area, leaving messages with both.  Debbie Kaufman and Maxine Davis got back to me and both generously offered us help, but since Maxine was closer, we drove to her home and parked for the night.  Being the gracious southern hostess that she is, she made up a snack bag for us with a 2 liter bottle of Coke, snack crackers, a tin of nuts, and my personal favorite, a pint of Italian vanilla bean ice cream.  (A little bit of heaven in a carton)

You’d think our story would be over at this point, but not quite.  No, Murphy was on  roll and having a good time with us.  When we got up the next morning, the tire we had just put on the trailer was flat.  My husband’s response?  “I think I’ve had just about all the adventure I can stand on this vacation”.  Then he proceeded to jack up the trailer…AGAIN…and put the spare on.

Just a side note, the two tires we were sold on the highway were old tires (new, but manufactured in 2007) and the one that went flat had a nail in it.  Okay, so after putting the spare on, we drove it to the storage place and thankfully left it there.  We won’t bother fixing the old tire with the nail, so we still need to buy another new tire and put it on the trailer, but we’ll leave that for another day.

So, now you know what it takes for my husband to reach the point of deciding that our trip to Florida was an adventure that he’d rather not repeat any time soon.  Yes, you really can have too much adventure in one day.

Here’s your chance to tell all…we’d love to hear about your most memorable adventure!