Mile Marker 32.5

by Brian

July 14, 2010...

Up until the third and final day of our trip, we had had a pretty uneventful journey. Sure, we had narrowly missed Bambi, nearly floated our truck across the road in the flood, and barely missed the Highchair of Death as it careened down the road towards us, foaming with sparks like a rabid squirrel (the chair, not us). But none of that compared with the 4 1/2 hour episode that I like to call "Survivor: Illinois."

We were feeling good, it was 7am and we were 30 minutes past St. Louis when a car drove by us and a lady in it started pointing and mouthing "Your trailer!" It pains me to imagine the stupid look I must have had on my face as I tried to get over my shock. We pulled over and went back to inspect the damage. One of the wheels was smoking pretty badly and looked a lot like how we felt after two full days of traveling. Our initial elation of "just" having a flat tire turned into very bad thoughts about the Budget Truck company when we realized that we were not provided with a spare tire.

The Death of a Trailer Tire

It seemed that the Illinois state police were out in force that morning, and not long after we pulled over the first of our road-side friends in uniform pulled over to see what we needed. Some of them were so big and beefy that I was glad that we weren't in any position for them to catch us speeding or steeling corn from the neighboring corn field. After the first officer left, I told Natalie that five troopers would probably stop before we finally left (probably the most important prediction of all-time). Remember that magic number.

We called Budget and they said that they would send someone out with a new tire to our location (which was graciously provided by the second of the State troopers, who stopped by while we were on the phone). We were told that help would arrive in about 1.5 hours. We then had nothing to do, but wait....

After rescuing the violins from the cabin of the truck, we sat behind the truck, huddling up in what shade we could find with the violins. Officers three and four stopped by within about ten minutes of each other. As the sun gradually rose higher in the sky, our shade slowly began to disappear. After having been waiting 3.5 hours (still no tire man), it seemed like we were destined to perish, clinging to what little shade we had. It was about at that point that we realized that our hazard lights had stopped blinking. Our battery was dead. We weren't too concerned, since surely the tire/roadside assistance person would have jumper cables.

The violins get first dibs on the shade.... Notice how much less of it there is than in the previous picture.

Well, who knew that not every roadside assistance person carries jumper cables? When the guy finally showed up, he looked at us like we had been out in the sun too long after asking about cables (which we had been, technically...). He fixed the tire and went on his not-so-merry way, probably to the next person who had been waiting 5 hours or something.

I ripped a page out of our atlas and was about to write "Need a jump" and flag down cars at the side of the road, when Natalie remembered that every one of our State trooper friends had told us to call 911 if we needed anything. Well, since jumper cables fit under the "anything" category, Natalie got the honor of calling 911 and requesting some jumper cables. After all that we went through, it really was too bad that she didn't ask for a couple of milkshakes, too. Can't have everything I guess. Afterward, she voiced her disappointment that the dispatcher didn't answer the call with "911, what's the emergency?" like they do in all of the movies. Tssk. Tssk.

Huddled up in our bunker of shade... trying to stay sane... not succeeding....

Thirty minutes later, the FIFTH state trooper showed up! He said that he had jumper cables, but because of insurance reasons couldn't give us a jump. He said that we should get our car down off the trailer and use it for the jump. We replied that that wasn't an option and I said that I would start flagging cars down. When I started to get my sign, he suddenly had a change of heart and said, "Well, hold on, let's see what I can do...." He then pulled his blessed squad car up next to our truck (so that our truck was between him and the road). He hooked up the cables, and a few minutes later our engine had been resurrected. He told us that if anyone asked, it was our fairy godmother who jumped us, not a state trooper. Fortunately, this story does have a very happy ending as the next exit where we stopped for gas had a Burger King at the gas station! That made everything worth it!

All in all, it was a frustrating ordeal, but it could have been so much worse. But after that setback, we were even more excited to finally make it into Nashville.