Going the extra mile

After a belated holiday gathering at my folk’s house which included a call to paramedics and a (thankfully!) brief hospital stay (it’s okay...everyone’s fine. Thanks for asking!) last evening our family was making the three hour drive home on a beautiful stretch of California’s coastal route 101 when at 12:30 am, as I was starting to doze (my wife was driving) there was an abrupt “grinding-steel to the ground sound” which was followed by my wife’s expert (cool, calm, collected and without a single curse word) handling of the left rear tire blowing out on our fully packed (six people, two dogs) SUV. My wife (MY HERO!) managed to safely get us over to the right shoulder of the road. Both my older sons and I got out and saw that the side wall of the tire was completely shredded. Changing a tire? No problem! That is until two of the lug nuts broke right off. I called AAA and there we waited for the next forty minutes or so on a beautiful clear night. (It’s dark on the coast at 1AM halfway between Ventura and Santa Barbara). When the tow driver (Our HERO!) showed up we were all relieved. He loosened one nut but the next snapped off too. So, there we were three loose nuts and three completely broken off. He said at this point we’d need a flatbed tow truck with a bigger crew cab to accommodate all six of us in the tow truck as his truck could only hold five of us. (The dogs would have to ride in the SUV. They didn’t seem to mind.).  About forty minutes later the next tow truck driver (our second hero!) arrived and in another 35-40 minutes or so we were on our way. I sure am glad we bought that extra protection from AAA where you can be towed up to 100 miles for no extra charge. As it turned out we live 101 miles up the road. We weren’t charged for the extra mile.

Lots of fun to spare at: www.rubescartoons.com