Road Trips & Flat Tires

I've been driving for 15 years, and in all of those 15 years I have never gotten a flat tire.  That was, until this past weekend.  With my sister, Amy, in town from Maryland and Memorial weekend coming up, Kate and I decided to take a little road trip back to Maryland.  This little road trip started with hitching a ride with Amy.  The plan was Kate and I would ride to MD with Amy, visit my grandparents, my friend, and my brother and sister-in-law, and then Kate and I would fly back to Columbus.

Seems simple, right?  Wrong.

First, Amy, Kate, and I left Columbus, OH driving to Maryland shortly after 7 am on Thursday.  15 minutes into our drive and we hit some serious traffic, like, road closed due to a terrible accident traffic.  I think we went a total of 3 miles in an hour.  When we were able to get back up to the speed limit, we had to stop so that I could feed Kate.  Shortly after we got back on the road, we heard a pop sound, realized we had no control of the car we were driving, and found out that we got a flat tire on the front left tire.  (The "no control" part was very scary.)

We pulled over to the right side of the road and starting exploring our options.  My independent and oh-so-car-savvy sister was determined and convinced that we could change this tire ourselves.  I was not as confident, but I knew we would figure it out together.  Luckily, we really didn't have to.  A very good Samaritan pulled over and changed the tire all by his lonesome which we were extremely grateful for.  That left us driving on a spare, so we then had to go to a tire place to get a new tire.

By noon, 5 hours into our 7 hour drive, we were only 1.5 hours away from Columbus.  When it was time to get back on the road again, my heart ached to simply turn around and go back home to Columbus as opposed to drive another 6 hours, but we pressed on.

We arrived in Maryland just after 7 pm.  Our 7 hour road trip took 12.  Kate was an absolute angel the entire trip.  I couldn't have been more proud of her...or more sorry for putting her through that.

Fortunately, once we finally arrived in Maryland, we saw everyone we had set out to see - my grandparents, my friend - Tamara, and my brother and sis-in-law.  It got a little hectic staying at a different house each night, but we managed, and we took Kate's very first flight back to Columbus.  Which, again, she did very well despite being sleepy and slightly restless.

It was so nice to see my wonderful family and friend, but after such an ordeal getting into town, home was a very welcome sight.

Trip to MD.

HA-PPY NEW YEAR!

We topped off the year with a road trip to Maryland to see my family.  My parents drove down from Ottawa, Canada, Brian and I traveled from Columbus, Ohio, and we enjoyed a lovely visit and a belated Christmas with family and friends in the Old Line State.

Kate was an absolute angel on the ride.  We left relatively late on the way to Maryland, around 12:15 pm, and she slept pretty much the entire way!  This day of napping and sleeping contributed to her keeping her sweet baby blues open until 4:30 am the next morning, but we couldn't blame her for staying up all night after sleeping all day!  On the way back, we left after her first feed which put us on the road around 6:15 am.  This worked a lot better and she stuck to her normal schedule!  We couldn't have asked for a sweeter baby!

As usual, it was very hard to say goodbye, but distance makes the heart grow fonder, so we bid our adieus and promised to see each other sooner rather than later.  It was a fantastic way to top off the year and make a great start to the new year.

We wish you and yours a wonderful new year as well!

Happy New Year!

Road Trip!

My friend Joanne called me and told me that she and her family were going to be in Louisville, KY for the National Farm Machinery show this past week into this weekend and thought that we could all meet up for dinner somewhere.  Louisville is about four hours from Columbus, OH, but Cincinnati, OH is only two hours from Louisville and Columbus, so we decided to both make the trek up and down to meet in Cincy for dinner tonight!

Joanne and I met in college.  We lived together for 2 years.  She studied crop science while I was in horticulture.  The last time I saw her was in August of 2006!  She and her husband had just had their first baby, Bruce.  They have since had two more - Savannah and Colton.  Joanne and her husband, Bruce, live on a farm in Virginia and raise tobacco.  She was recently named farm woman of the year, and it was so wonderful to catch up and have the opportunity to introduce Brian to her and her family and meet their two [semi] new additions!

Joanne and Bruce with their first, Bruce. August '06.

Joanne and I with her second, Savannah. February '12.

We definitely have to do it again soon! We're not waiting six more years this time!