So, we started our journey with a foot of snow on the ground. We were supposed to leave two days earlier, but New Mexico really is the Land of Entrapment. It had other ideas for us, giving nearly 24 hours of continuous snowfall.
My boyfriend was having the time of his life.
Being one that grew up in Louisiana, he almost never sees snow in the humidity. And when it started to snow, you can bet he was out there playing in it. There wasn't much on the ground when he first went outside, but that didn't stop him from building a dinky snowman. I wish I would have taken a picture of it, but I didn't want to go outside and get even more cold (I'm always cold).
Then as we prepared for bed, i peeked outside and noticed that all that was left of his tiny snowman was a single twig arm, pathetically reaching up from the pile of snow covering it. The sight was actually quite comical. Here is my rendition of it:
The next day, we scrambled to get packed so we could leave at least relatively early the next morning.
The drive across half of New Mexico was uneventful and rather boring. Nothing got interesting until we reached Texas. Let me tell you, that state....is crawling with cops. Every corner you turn, there will be a cop.
There were several occasions when a car speeding by us was pulled over instantly by a cop that would seemingly appear out of nowhere. Turn a corner and there would be nothing, but as soon as someone was speeding, a wild police car would appear from the piles of tumble weed and zoom in on that speeding car.
Now, I'm actually very surprised our car made it as far as it did......with a caliper screw missing. For those of you who are not car savvy, a caliper is what holds the brake pads on and pressurizes the pads to the brake drum with the brake fluid.
Well, the screw that was missing is the one that holds said caliper in place. I was getting off the freeway so I could stop and get gas. As soon as I hit that brake pedal, the caliper sprung from its spot and assaulted the rim. We didn't know that was what was wrong at first, and I was terrified. I thought I had broken his car and all the while I was thinking that I just somehow managed to throw out his transmission. The transmission was having some issues with shifting, so it really wouldn't have surprised me if that was the issue.
So, I tried to inch the car into the parking lot (we were still on the side of the freeway) and the car refused to go anywhere. The boyfriend told me to throw it into neutral, thinking he could push it into the parking lot. The car went nowhere. So, he pulled me out of the driver's seat and floored it. The car (Betsy, from now on) lurched forward in a flurry of pitiful banging noises.
We managed to get Betsy off the road and to a decent spot, yet we somehow couldn't figure out what was wrong. So, the boyfriend thinks its because the tires are loose, and yes, that actually was a problem because all the nuts on the tires were loose. But that wasn't the proper solution.
I got out of the car and had him try to drive, and that's when I saw the bright, cherry red caliper dragging against the rim.
We didn't have tools to fix it, nor the missing screw.
We were told there was a Wal-Mart nearby, but they lied. We walked up a hill, freezing wind blowing in our faces and didn't see a Wal-Mart in sight like the guys at the gas station promised there was. Though, we did see a Lowes, so we went there instead. We couldn't find the proper screw, but we did find the correct tools we needed. And so, the long walk back.
Much to our surprise, there was a cop there. But not just one car. There were like...two cruisers and a state. The state trooper had his lights flashing obnoxiously and the woman he was talking to was in hysterics. She stared at us as we walked by, as if begging us to help her.
The only bit of conversation we heard was because she wanted us to hear it, I believe. It went something like this:
Woman: "I'm sorry! *sobsobsob*"
Officer: "Would you calm down! I just wanna make sure you have no weapons on you!"
And that's about all we heard, actually. I looked back as we walked up the hill to see her fighting against him as he tried to shove her in the car. I found it quite comical.
So we got back to the car and hammered the caliper back into place and tightened one bolt, thinking that if it made it that far, that it should be good to go.
We were horribly mistaken.
Barely tapping the brake sent it off carving a deeper groove into the rim. It did this for another three times before we decided to rig a smaller screw to fit by wrapping it in duct tape and screwing it into place.
We always say that duct tape fixes everything, and this is no exception. It's still holding strong, even though we now have a replacement bolt and have yet to do the replacing.
Typing this just reminded me that the part we ordered came in today, oops.
Anyway, on with this not-so-fascinating tale.
While we were rigging this screw, hammering and wrenching it into place, who would have guessed that a police officer would pull over to help....at 10 o'clock at night. He had a nice cruiser too, a dodge charger. He didn't really help all that much, he just had a brighter flashlight than we could ever dream of having and let us borrow it while he put our information into his computer to make sure we weren't runaway convicts.
Finally being done with our brake problem, we headed on our way.
I'm sorry...but Dallas is a horrible city to drive through, even at night. I sat in the passenger seat, stiff with panic. My claustrophobia and vividly overactive imagination was currently ruling my mental state, and I could do nothing more than maintain a death grip on the door.
But once we got out of the city, my heart beat normal again and I was fine. My boyfriend, taking me up on my promise (I said that if he drives through Dallas, I would be willing to drive the rest of the way), pulled over a few towns over and let me take the wheel.
I got pulled over, of course.
But, it was Betsy's fault, as the license plate lamps were out. The cop was nice, probably taking pity on the two teenagers driving through Texas at midnight and just gave me a warning. I'm just glad my insurance covers any vehicle I drive (thanks mom!). I didn't have my proof of insurance with me, and I'm glad he didn't point that out.
Mental note: take insurance wherever you go if it includes you driving your boyfriend's car.
The last leg of the journey was rather uneventful, but all the while I was driving, I was just waiting for that unsuspecting deer to prance out into the road, staring at me with blank eyes.
It never happened, but it was my imagination trying to keep me awake after all.
That's when I began to notice what looked like smoke billowing around the car. Turns out, it was just Texas/Louisiana early morning fog.
We finally arrived at my boyfriend's mom's house...at 3:50 in the morning- 6 hours after the initial time we were supposed to get there.
And that, my friends, is part one of our 'epic' journey.
No comments:
Post a Comment