From the Heart
Just when I thought the harrowing experience on the mountain in Kentucky would be my one and only road trip to write about …
Honey, hold my sweet tea, have I got a story to tell.
We left our little house on the alley about 5:30 a.m. We usually can make the trip to Tampa in about 16 hours.
Of course, it was my turn to drive as we left I-65 onto I-24 to get to I-75 in Chattanooga. All of a sudden, we started seeing signs that said 24 was closed. Surely not totally closed. We soon found ourselves sitting in the parking lot of 24.
Waze, the navigation app we use, said we would be sitting there for 87 minutes. It was correct. Chuck read the newspaper, worked the crossword puzzle, messed up the Sudoku, and figured out the Jumble. Since I wasn’t technically “driving” I texted a few friends to whine.
My whine turned to gratitude as I read that the delay was caused by a 21-car pileup due to ice on a bridge on 24. There, but for the grace of God, could we have been if we had left the house an hour earlier.
As we began to move in traffic my car’s tire pressure light came on. Lovely. Could we have run over a nail or something? My tires were new. It was not a concern … it was a worry. We had no business stopping on the side of a mountain to change a tire.
We took the next exit which had two truck stops. The problem was that at both places the air machines were out of order. Seriously?
I got back on Waze and found a Ford dealership nine miles away in Murfreesboro, Tenn. We made our way there and found that all four tires were seven pounds under where they should be. Seriously?
We got there right at lunchtime, but the kind young man aired up our tires and we were on our way – except we could not find the exit of the huge dealership. We had to stop and ask for directions on how to get out. Seems they had gates at every exit and you had to wait for them to open. Oh my goodness!
As we approached Chattanooga, we began the climb into the mountains. It was very cold for Tennessee and ice was still a problem on the trees, and on the top of a motorhome which passed us. As it passed us, a huge piece of ice flew off and headed toward our windshield.
We thought it was going to break our windshield, but it did not. It did, however, break our windshield wiper. It flew off, and while we were thankful it didn’t break the windshield, we knew we had a problem. The forecast for later in our trip that day was rain, a lot of rain, several hours of rain.
I got back on Waze, which told us that there was a dealership in Chattanooga, some 16 miles away. It was 3 p.m. Would the service department be open? “Please Lord, let it be open!”
As we continued to climb the mountain, we realized that either fog had set in or we were up in a cloud. Either way, 15 miles per hour was as fast as we could go because we could barely see the car in front of us.
I told Chuck we could not make this stuff up.
My husband looked over at me and said, “Well, this day should have plenty of fodder for a column.”
We made it to the very small dealership. They were still open at 4 on a Saturday afternoon. “Thank you, Lord.” And they had the parts we needed. It took about an hour to get back on the road.
We are now thinking maybe a midnight arrival in Tampa.
As the rain came down in buckets, we knew we really had been fortunate to have things fall into place the way they did. While we had faced a few obstacles – okay, more than a few – we were safe and should soon be in Tampa. Things could have been worse, much worse.
Surely nothing else could happen.
As we discussed that, while it had been a rough, aggravating, frustrating day, we would have quite the story to tell and I had a column to write.
We were tired. The kind of tired where you fight to stay awake and yet too tired to relax. You just want to put on your jammies and pull the covers up over your head and sleep for 10 hours.
But then we see a sign and flashing lights. 75 is CLOSED. We were 15 minutes from the house. We took the detour. This was Florida’s version of that mountain in Tennessee. It was dark and winding. I knew there had to be alligators nipping at the sides of the road. It looked to me like we were in the Everglades.
Strangely, there were about 15 to 20 police cars along the entire stretch of the five-mile detour. We didn’t know if that was reassuring or concerning.
A few minutes after 1 a.m., we arrived at the house in Tampa, 20 hours after we left home. We were safe. We were exhausted. We definitely slept well. And I had a story for this week’s column.
I cannot wait to fly the friendly skies again. These road trips are becoming horror stories that I don’t ever want to experience or write about ever again.
Now that I’ve told you my story, I’ll take back my sweet tea. You know I will have more stories to tell … and there will more sweet tea to drink.