Don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of really great days on our vacation last week. I do NOT regret going and the moments spent on the beach with my family were, as always, amazing. There is nothing like being in paradise with twenty of your favorite people.
Amidst all of the good, however, were a few moments when I just wanted to bang my head against a wall. On Saturday night while traveling down, we blew a tire on our travel trailer. It was well after dark and we were precariously parked on the side of the interstate. After a failed attempt to call roadside service, my uncle caught up to us and helped Josh jack up the camper and change the tire. Sunday and Monday it rained. All day. The first day didn’t bother me, because it’s always nice to hang around camp and settle in. I read a lot, grocery shopped and got our campsite well-organized. On Monday, Josh went to Starbucks and worked most of the day and I was hoping to spend the day at the pool with the girls. The thunderstorm baring down outside wasn’t conducive to swimming and by the time it cleared up and we were able to go outside, my patience had worn thin. Two different days, Beemer had an anxiety attack while we were gone and broke things in the camper. The first day it was just her food bowls, but the second time she chewed up some door trim. On our first trip in the trailer. Ugh. Then on Wednesday, I randomly saw the announcement via Instagram that the Mumford & Sons concert had been cancelled. Not only was I sick about missing them, but those tickets were Josh’s Father’s Day gift.
No trip is ever complete without a few mishaps, so we pushed through and managed to have a wonderful week. We ate a ton of great food, did a little shopping, there was some dancing and karaoke and I won’t even tell you how many books I managed to read in eight days. I avoided exercise for most of the week, but logged a sweaty five-miler on Sunday morning before we broke camp and headed home. Little did I know that painful run would be the highlight of my day.
We pulled out of the park at 9 o’clock on the nose and bid farewell to the Gulf Shores water tower in our rear-view mirror. I texted K to let her know we were an hour behind them. Then, I was forced to send this text to her at 9:35.
We limped along until we found a gas station with a parking lot big enough and were faced with a very flat tire. We were hoping to air it up, but that would never happen. After replacing the flat on the way down, we bummed a tire off of my uncle. It was a suitable spare until we could get home and have our other tire replaced. We jacked the camper back up and put the new-to-us spare on, only to realize it was a wee bit smaller than the other tires. We drove on it for almost twenty minutes and pulled into the local office of the dealership where we purchased our camper. I can’t share the text I sent to K when we pulled in and realize the spare was already flat. That marks three flat tires on one vacation. Not looking good, friends.
The dealership didn’t open until 11, so we hung out in the truck with the girls. For 45 minutes. Josh had to uncrate the dog and put her in the cab with us, where she proceeded to breath heavy on my leg until I demanded to get outside. I hopped into the hot camper to fix everyone a drink and grab some Excedrin before I started taking lives. When the dealership opened, we left Beemer in the truck and went our separate ways. I took the girls to the restroom and the nice lady at the front desk made them both a snow-cone, which we ate under the only shade tree in sight. Although the service department was closed (they kept reminding us it was Father’s Day?!), the man in charge found a brand new tire and let Josh have it. It took us about 15 minutes to jack the trailer up and attempt to change the tire, only to realize that the rim was the wrong size for our lugs. Fantastic. Josh calls a local tire place to see about having it remounted on another rim and although they would only charge us $15, they couldn’t get to it until 4 o’clock. They were short-staffed. Because IT WAS FATHER’S DAY!
K texted me again at 11:20 to see how we were doing and my only response was “Not good.” By this point we had determined that upon the purchase of our trailer, our complimentary roadside assistance subscription had been processed incorrectly and there was no record of our enrollment. Not only did this explain the trouble we were having getting any help, but it explained why I got nowhere when we called them on our way to the beach the weekend before. We were told, both by the local dealership and by roadside assistance, that our only recourse was to call the dealership where we bought the trailer and have them pull our file. Since they didn’t open until noon on Sunday, we resumed our wait in the parking lot. The girls were fighting over the DVD player, there was no wireless network to support their iPods, we were all starving to death and the dog was still breathing on my leg.
At noon I asked K where they were and they were only 90 minutes from home. We were still stranded in a parking lot 30 minutes from the beach and I was on the verge of tears. The dealership back home was able to verify our eligibility, but had to call roadside assistance on our behalf and straighten everything out over the phone. Although we are still waiting and had no clear resolution in sight, we finally felt as if we were making some progress. By one o’clock in the afternoon, we had decided there was no way we could spend the rest of the afternoon in the truck and we decided to stay an additional night. I went inside to make arrangements to leave our camper overnight and we decided to unhitch and drive back to the beach and stay with family. At least everyone could stretch out and we could enjoy some seafood for dinner.
Just as we were about to make a break for it, roadside assistance called me back to tell me they had a mechanic on the way and we should be on the road within the hour. Our cell phone batteries were dying and the girls were restless, but we were so ready to be home. We scrapped the idea of an extra night and started making preparations to drive home. Again. I snuck over to the campsites they have available at the dealership and started stealing electricity. Our cell batteries were so depleted that we couldn’t make it home and we don’t have a car charger for Josh’s truck. Since we were still waiting for the mechanic, we decided we have to charge them, even if we got yelled at. I sat next to someone’s RV (who wasn’t at there at the moment) and plugged our phones into their outlet. I sat in the grass, far far away from my children, and began to read a book… until it started to rain. Thankfully, the electrical box closed and there was room for our phones inside, so I left them charging and made a run for the truck. As the mechanic finally pulled in around 2 o’clock, the bottom fell out and the poor guy was forced to replace one tire and remount our spare in the rain. A few hundred dollars later, we were limping out of the parking lot, ready to be home.
I sent K an update at 3 o’clock and 6 o’clock, respectively. I think you can see my frustration was still growing. We had been in the car for almost ten hours and were ready to kill each other.
clearly I meant “locking myself in the bathroom.”
I had to eat Burger King for lunch when I could see Arby’s and their curly fries just across the street. BK had no napkins, so I had to climb back in the trailer and dig out a roll of paper towels. Beemer was howling from her crate and trying to break free. She ate a beach towel and whatever other random items she could drag into the crate and all I could do was yell at her out the window, doing 70 mph down the interstate. We had to make an unscheduled stop to move Ella’s car seat because she couldn’t get comfortable. The power went out in Subway at 8 o’clock while I was trying to order dinner on our way home. The rain was so heavy when we finally spotted the rock house and since we have to back the camper in, I was forced to stand, ankle deep, in water and attempt to direct Josh into our driveway. I’m pretty sure I saw Noah and his ark floating by.
Ultimately, we didn’t unpack a think on Sunday evening. We came inside with pillows, pink and a Subway sandwich. We ate around the coffee table and I might have sung the Hallelujah chorus when the girls were finally in bed. Then Beemer threw up all over our bedroom floor. Happy Father’s Day, indeed.
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Of course, the girls rode in car seats in the backseat and the dog was crated in the back of the truck for the ENTIRE DRIVE. We were so crammed in there, that Josh uninstalled their seats and put them in the camper while we waited so that everyone could stretch their legs.
