Sorry I have been gone for a while, but we’ve been traveling to from Chapel Hill, NC to New Braunfels, Texas by car for my parent’s 50th Wedding Anniversary. Here is one of many stories from the trip:
Day 1:
The kids love to travel by car. They are well equipped with their favorite toys, a VCR and screen to watch movies, a game cube complete with 4 controllers, MP3’s and gameboys. They create little nests around themselves with all their gadgets and gizmos ….most of which need to be plugged into the electrical outlet in the car. I even had my computer adaptor so that I could work on my parents’ 50th anniversary slideshow. (I had promised to have it done 2 months ago, I now have two days before the event and am under the gun to finish it.) My four children rarely “cry out loud” when they are enjoying the magic of so many options for entertainment all in one spot. That is, until the electrical system fails in the car and you are stranded between nowhere and nowhere.
To be exact: The Conoco Truck Stop at Exit 69 off of Interstate 65S, Alabama, US of A!
All in all, this place is a lovely place to be stranded. There are gas tanker trucks all around, mangled trees left over from Katrina, piles of rocks 20 feet high, and truckers. Not only that, the Conoco has a small dining area with two tables featuring “delissio pizza” and “dogs and burgers”. The lucky family stranded here have ALL their needs met with an array of items including beef jerkey, hunting supplies, confederate flags, bumper stickers that say, “ BEER, allowing ugly people to have SEX since 1821”, (Nick: Mom, what does that mean?) and baseball hats advertising Viagra. It’s a one-stop bonanza where you can have your ‘delissio’ pizza, have educational moments with your kids AND do your Christmas shopping. How did we get so fortunate?
In what seemed like no time, a mechanic (we’ll call him “cooter”) and his sidekick arrive driving a beat-up pick-up truck looking like they had pieced it together with pieces of other cars. I said to Chris, “ Well, if they keep that hunk of junk running, they must be good mechanics.” Our saviors are bedecked in cammo suits with long filthy hair, a shotgun rack in the back of the truck holding a twelve gauge shotgun for “protection”, tool chests, and the one guy was missing his front teeth and wore a hat that said: Why can’t I attract women like crazy instead of attract crazy women.
They inform us that the alternator is dead;which is what we suspected, and that the only place to find one is 1 ½ hour way in Mobile. Well, we had no choice but to trust those guys and wait. So we did.
Seven HOURS at that truck stop = a bill for $650.00 and a fixed car.
It was worth it when I saw that truck stop in the rear view mirror.
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