Ok, yesterday I had a slight adventure in my Kappa.
You know it's gonna be a bad day when another owner calls you at 7:40 am and says they can't go because they have a nail in their tire. That was the foreshadowing for the entire rest of my day.
First stop 1 hr into the run. I decide to leave my phone in the bathroom at the gas station. A guy in our group who used the bathroom right after us saw it and asked if it was anyone's. I head for the bathroom. Someone is in the bathroom so I wait and this lady who looks like she's had a rough life walks out. She gives me a funny look. I almost ask her if she saw the phone, but I don't. Why...I'm not sure. I go into the bathroom and of course, the phone is gone. Ask at the counter and no one has turned it in. I leave my name and number hoping someone will turn it in. We look around the store and ask a few people, but it's gone.
We get to the lunch stop about an hour later. We're pinging my phone and see that it's still either at the gas station or right around it. I decide to go back for my phone. As the rest of the group is leaving, Wartie asks if I want his phone. I have a Garmin so I politely decline. He is no more around the corner, I start to move the car and hear thump, thump, thump. And I know. I pull the car in at the next parking area and yup...the driver's side rear tire is pancake flat. And the group has just left. This is not good. It's Sunday and I'm not exactly in a huge town.
I go around the corner and there is a gas station a block away. They have air, so I put some in to see what happens. The tire is hissing. This is getting worse by the minute. I go inside and ask the ladies if anyone in town can fix a tire on Sunday. I also ask if I can use their phone. They are hesitant, but let me. I only remember 2 numbers. The road captain of the group doesn't answer his phone, so I call Chili. She starts to try to track them down.
The gals at the station tell me to try the place down the street. I leave my Dad to take Chili's call when she calls back and I head down the street. Of course their service station is closed. The nearest place open is 30 miles away in West Virginia. I go back to the first station for Dad. When I do, I check the tire again and now I can see what I'm dealing with. I can't tell what it is, but it's in the tread and is probably fixable. It looks to be about 3/8" around so I don't want to try to plug it myself. I wait about 10 minutes and call Chili to let her know we're going to try to make it to the place 30 miles away. I give her the address so she knows where we are going. I offer the gas station manager some money for the phone calls, but she refuses. I pretty much lose it. We get on the road and I stop every 10 minutes to check the tire. During the last 10 minutes, my dad yells "Deer!!!". I slam on the brakes and just miss a young doe. First bright spot of the day. The tire holds up enough, but is flat by the time we get there. Luckily they can repair it.
While the guys at the shop are fixing the tire, Dad and I walk about 1/2 a mile or so to Wal-Mart to try to do something about a phone. 3-4 blocks down the street, I realize I didn't give the guys at the shop the extender for my lug nuts. I jog back in 90+ degree heat.
FYI - Piloti's make great running shoes! I catch back up with Dad at Wally World and get a Trac phone. I leave Dad at Wally World and tell him I'll come pick him back up. He's too old to be out in the heat walking that far.
I get back to the tire place and they are just pulling the car out. I walk in and the guy is like...you gotta see what was in your tire! We start checking it out going WTF is that? The guy is like, I think it's a bone! Yup! My tire was boned!! I go to pay them and they don't charge me anything. I can't let them do that so I give them some money anyway.
We start heading back and my Garmin decides to take us on an off roading adventure. Because it's hot, we're climbing steep hills and only going about 20 mph, my car decides to overheat. The temp climbs to 212 to 217 and then 221. I turn on the heater and it cools back down to 207. Turn it off, temp climbs and repeat with the heater until I can get on a real road and get some air to the engine. It's fine after that.
Chili calls Verizon for me, they call me and I suspend the phone as lost or stolen. Since it's on the way, I go back to look for the phone one last time because it still showed it in the area of the gas station. We look everywhere and can't find it. We finally make it home about 10 pm last night. I made a stop on the way home because I was pretty much shot and needed a break. At least we made it home. I was playing about 10 different scenarios of what I could do to get Dad back to Cleveland that night. We were about 3 hours away, so I thought...ok I have my RSA's on my stock rims in my garage. I only need one. How am I gonna flatbed this car 3 hrs? I don't have a phone to call, I don't have a AAA membership anymore. It was just a bad day all around.
I've pretty much beaten myself up over all the incidents since 11 am yesterday. It was not my best day. Enjoy the entertainment value on this one! Only me, right?
