Our road trip began Saturday, May 5th at 9:30 am. Actually, the trouble began about 6:30 the night before. I feel the need to document this epic trip now before I forget all the details. Who am I kidding? It will take years of therapy to erase the memories of this trip.
It all began as I left the house Friday for my requisite manicure/pedicure before vacation. It was 6:30 on Friday eve, I am already in a semi-irritable mood over who knows what at this point, and I jump in my car, kiss my husband goodbye, and turn the key. Nothing. Nada. No lights, no sound, no action. You have to be kidding, I never leave the key on, did I leave the key on? My husband thinks I left the key on. No big deal, we'll jump it off the other car. No time though, gotta be at salon asap as Mom is waiting on me. Jump in the other car and head off.
TWO HOURS LATER I finally leave the salon. A relaxing appointment that should have taken an hour tops takes double. The shellac polish on my nails keeps bubbling and the sweet nail salon owner is a perfectionist and refuses to let it slide. He paints them, dries them, removes it. Rinse and repeat atleast four times. I am slightly dissapointed in this process as there have been countless other patrons come and go for practically the same services in half the time. Mom leaves me, she's been finished for an hour. He finally completes and I get a $10 gift certificate for my trouble, even after my famous last words; "Please, don't worry, I'm on vacation starting today, there isn't anything at this point that could stress me out." I am conviced the devil heard me say those words. And I had to chew on them ALL DAY yesterday.
I run to my parents to get my dresses for our trip, I stop and visit my grandma, I think I have everything I had on my list to get from my Mom's. I get home and realize I got everything on my list from there except the main reason I went there, my DRESS! Seriously. Ok, fine. I'll just run back over. We load the entire car. Then we put the bike rack on and the bikes. Done, ok I can put the dress in the backseat and we'll be ready to hit the road at 5am. I turn the key. Nothing. I can see the stress wash over my husband's face. We jump the car, again. I drive to my parents. I shut the car off multiple times and it always starts. Just a duplicate fluke, right?
It's almost midnight and we're laying in bed.
"There's no way I'm getting up in 5 hours to drive 12." Dale claims.
"I'm okay with that, let's just sleep until you wake up and we'll go." I reply, knowing that he'll most likely be up by 7.
"I'm going to start the car in the morning early and if it doesn't start I'm going to get the battery replaced instead of jumping it."
"Okay."
Storms through the night are terrible, and so I sleep like a rock. I wake up at 5:30 to the sound of the car starting. I lay there a minute wondering what he is doing. It started, so should I get up and shower? Maybe not. It is pouring the rain, we should wait until it stops. I'll just lay here until he comes back in. ... Okay maybe I won't he's taking too long.
"Did it start?"
"Yes, but it was so weak sounding. I want to replace it."
"Okay, let's go back to bed and we can replace it when the dealership opens."
So we go back to bed, Dale gets up at 7:30 and heads out to get the battery replaced. By 8:30 he's back, and I'm in the shower. Mind you, during all of this we've had to remove the bikes and unpack the trunk because the battery is in the TRUNK! By 9:30 we have reloaded the entire car, checked every window and door in the house (twice) and are ready to go. We hit the road and I tweet this:
"Two bikes, one dog, the Bible, and a 9mm. I think this is what you officially call locked and loaded."
I was feeling so clever, I read it aloud to Dale. He chuckles. I mean if you've got eachother, your
baby dog, the Word of God, and a weapon what else do you need?
Fast forward three hours. This pops up:
Dale immediately begins to melt on me. "First the battery, now this!"
"It's not that big of a deal. The battery has never been replaced, the car is six years old, it's expected.
This is just a coincidence." (As I'm saying this it's ringing in my head that Uncle Ed says there's no such thing as coincidence.)
We stop, we decide to eat while the engine cools. Then we'll be on our way. We start the car, the message is gone. Dale is insistent on stopping at an AutoZone to check the coolant. We do. It's full. We are good to go. Back on the road we go. Fifteen minutes later it pops back up.
We pull over.
We turn off the air conditioner.
You can feel the stress enveloping the air. It's so thick I can hardly breathe. Oh wait, that's just the heat. We're back on the road, message is cleared but windows are down and the heat is blasting at 80 degrees with 90 degree fresh air blowing through the windows. I'm beginning to sweat, but it's no big deal, this too shall pass.
It happens again.
And again.
We call BMW. The closest one is Chattanooga. We're one hour away and they close in one hour and thirty minutes. I am praying in my head the entire time. We can do this.
No, we can't.
We make it 30 of the 50 miles. It keeps doing it. Dale is panicking that our engine is going to blow.
We pull into a RaceTrack gas station in Georgia. One of those little spots where you're in one state but you cross into another for a brief moment. Dale calls AAA and the roles have suddenly reversed. He is calm. He is handling business. I on the other hand am melting. Physically and emotionally. Tears well in my eyes as I dial the rental car company. I realize I'm not about to cry over the car situation, I'm about to cry because I'm sweating so bad that my clothes are literally soaked through all layers. I'm sweating in places I didn't know had sweat glands. I hang up on the rental car agent after he asks me twice for my reservation number and I repeatly tell him I do not have a reservation that's why I pressed 1 for NEW RESERVATION! So now I'm not only sweaty, but I'm a jerk. To the rental car representative, to my husband who is trying to be positive. (Seriously, Susie Smiles, since when did you stop having a temper tantrum and get all logical on me?)
We sit in this heat for 30 minutes waiting on a flatbed. It arrives. I almost cry again as I realize we have to take our bikes off again so he can put it on the truck, and then back on again for the trip. Dale handles it all as I stand on the side of the lot looking like a hot mess. Wet clothes, yorkie in one hand and fresh fountain drink in the other. I climb into the back of the truck, with no air conditioner, my dog, my husband, and the nicest southern tow truck driver ever. He talks incessantly and I can't even hear what he is saying over the engine of his truck. I call my Mom. I mean what else is a girl to do in this situation? She makes me laugh. I make her laugh harder. I can do this. Unfortunately this isn't my first ride in a tow truck. We only have to go 20 miles, I've riden 200 in one before.
The body odor in this truck assaults my nose. And I'm left to wonder at this point if it's the tow driver or myself. At this point in the game it could totally be me. I am cracking up at myself and my attempt at relieving the pain of the situation with humor. You know, because that's what we do, we laugh it off.
Our super niiiiice (read that in Dale's drawl) tow driver offers to take us to the airport to pick up a rental car. In what could only be divine intervention, I had just learned not two hours prior that my sweet friend Cassie now works for Hertz. A frantic text message and phone call later she has reserved us a car at the Chattanooga airport for $100 less than her competitor. We make it to the airport shockingly fast ( I may have blacked out from the smell, not completely sure) and I shamefully walk myself in to get the keys. Not only am I in my janky road trip comfy clothes, but they are soaked with sweat, and in true comfort fashion I am not wearing a bra. I casually conceal my missing undergarments with Sully in one arm and my LV in the other. My prayer is answered when I find the Hertz counter is a young female who not only sympathizes with my disheleved appearance, but wants to pet Sully. She has us in a rental car within 10 minutes. And not a terrible cartoon car either, but a legitimate full size, four door, sedan complete with new car smell and leather. Things are beginning to look up.
It is now 6:30pm. We should be arriving in Jax in 3 hours. GPS says we have 8. We keep cracking jokes on ourselves, the trip, and the first thing that finally makes me genuinely laugh...
"I feel like Clark Griswold."
I love this guy. He is the only person I could do this trip with and still have fun. We have this bizarre chemistry that when one of us throws a tantrum the other is calm. We didn't realize it until many hours later, but in reflection it is true.
The moon is full and roads begin to clear. 8 hours drops to 6 1/2, then to 5, and we start making some actual distance. I'm getting my second wind (as I always do around 10) and the caffeine is kicking. I'm having a solo dance party in the car and it feels like we're going 100 mph. (For all the jokesters out there, I know I have been known to do this, I was actually only doing 70 this time.) To say a Ford Fusion does not hug the road like a 5 Series BMW is a gross understatement.
We play the "it could be worse" game for a while. We do, afterall have so much to be thankful for. We are going on vacation. I was begininning to feel like we could have hashtagged our trip troubles as #firstworldproblems.
2am finally rolls around and we have finally arrived in Jax Beach. Relief begins to set in as we realize we have finally made it. We navigate the streets and find the condo. There is a light on inside. Strange. I pull the lockbox code from the sheet and open it. It's empty. I turn around and look at my husband and realize it's his turn to meltdown. I peek in the door and I see a dog.
"Well, are you going to call this guy and see what is going on."
I have this sinking feeling in my stomach. I better check the reservation before I haul off and call the owner at 2am and act like a psycho. I can't find it on my phone. No matter what we have to get a hotel. We leave and stop at the first we see. It's PACKED. Dale goes in to see if there is anything available and I use the chance to search for our reservation. I find it.
"There are no rooms available."
"Why is it so packed, it looks like spring break out here tonight, it's May."
"Cinco de Mayo."
"Wait, what is the date?"
"May 5th."
D'oh.
"Our reservation is for May 6th."
Silence.
"Oh my gosh, how on earth did I not realize I made our reservation starting tomorrow. We just knocked on those people's door. I almost called the owner at 2:30am! What was I thinking we would do?! Why didn't we just stay the night half way?"
"It doesn't matter, we have to find a room. Tell Siri to find us a hotel so we can start calling."
We drive to another hotel off the main road. It's full but they send us to a different hotel about three miles away. They have one room left. We take it and drive there. We arrive and there are two cop cars in the parking lot and the hotel is sketchy. I sit in the car while Dale handles the reservation. He comes back, we got the room. It's around back. We drive around and park. I load my arms up and we walk in. There is trash everywhere. I am not feeling great about this. Then I realize the room is on the second floor.
"There is NO WAY we are staying here."
"Then what are we doing?"
"We are not hauling all of our luggage and two bikes up two flights of stairs! I am calling Uncle Ben."
"You're right." (Those words never get old, haha!)
"Why are there no rooms,what is going on?!"
"I told you, it's Cinco de Mayo."
"Exactly! It's Cinco de Mayo, not Cinco de Florida!"
We drive around front, Dale walks in to cancel the reservation, I call my Mom, again. My Dad tells us the only people who take trips that take 24 hours are called astronauts. Ha. Ha. Ha. I get a home phone number for Uncle Ben. I call. We have a place to stay. It's almost 3:30am. Dale has offically had a meltdown at this point. I am delieriously awake and energized. I snap.
"Would you put on your big girl panties and chill out?! We have a place to stay, we can sleep in, you don't have to work tomorrow. Or the next 7 days for that matter! It's going to be okay, we're on vacation and you are acting like a three year old!"
"You're right, I'm sorry, I'm just so tired."
"So am I! I've been up as long as you have and have driven more than you have!"
We call truce. It's been a long, hard day. We are on the same team. We did it, we got here in one piece together. We have seven glorious days of relaxation ahead of us. By 4am we are finally in bed. Exhausted. Sweaty. Short tempers simmering. We dig out a toothbrush. It's all we can do to find one.
We call it a night.
And now, just 18 hours later we are sitting in the amazing beach house we rented, listening to the waves crash, blogging, reading, and relaxing.
History in the making.
