Good wedding. Bad tire.

The wedding was lovely. My sis made a fabulously beautiful bride. I almost cried. Just kidding. It was a happy time! I don't cry when I'm happy. I even managed to keep my older sis from getting all weepy. No pinching required...just a few stern looks. The hummer limo was a crime against nature. The wetlands were weeping. Just ask my sisters about it.

All was well until we tried to leave PA for home. Steve and I were driving down I-83 in Pennsylvania, and the car started to do a little weird wiggle thing. We pulled over and sure enough - flat tire! So, we call up our handy dandy road side assistance folks, who say it will be an hour til a tow truck comes to take us to pepboys to get a new tire.

As we're standing there on the side of the highway, waiting for our tow truck, hoping it will be early, my phone rings. It's Ryan, who asks - Why are you standing on the side of the road? I don't know where he was coming from, or how he even managed to spot us, but we tell him the tow-truck is coming and so he drives onward.

It was about 4:30 on a Sunday, and we find out that the pepboys closes at 6, so waiting for the tow truck is going to be pretty useless. He won't be able to get us there on time. We don't have enough shoulder room to safely get the donut on the car on the side of the highway, but.... We have some "fix-a-flat in the trunk, so we decide to give that a try and the tire inflates more or less, and we drive slowly down the highway three miles to our exit....except the map says to use exit 21B.....but there is no B, and we drive right past exit 21, thinking that surely 21B must be coming. Oh, google maps, how you let me down!

We take the next exit - Exit 19, so now we've been driving 5 miles on a fix-a-flat tire that is losing air. Okay, we'll just get back on the highway and go back to exit 21. Nope. It's one of those damn PA exits where there is no way to get back on. People have always bemoaned these to me, but I'd never had a problem. I feel your pain.

As we're driving in the general direction we think we have to go, Carlos our tow truck driver calls, cause he's where our car originally was stranded. And even though he came out, only to find us gone, he kindly gives us directions. Thanks Carlos! Unfortunately, we did too much missing exits and getting lost, so about 0.8 miles from the pepboys tire store, the tire gives up and goes completely flat.....in scenic York, PA.

So....we decide to try the donut tire. As I'm blocking traffic for Steve and he's kicking the tire to get it loose, a friendly PA fellow comes out of his house to check it all out. We Pennsylvanians love a good show. He starts kicking the tire too, and when that fails, he goes back inside. I figure we're stuck now, but he comes back with a friendly 250 pound guy who kicks that tire right off the car and hooray, we can put the donut on.

We give the guys some cash for their troubles, and we go to put air in the donut and get some grub. We spot a five guys two doors down from the gas station, and after tasty burgers and fries, we're off....speeding down the highway at 50mph all the way back to DC. By the way, after driving 50 on 95 and the beltway, I will stop waiting to pass slow people until I'm nearly at their car. It is nerve-wracking.

We get home about 9:30 or 10, after leaving PA at about 1:30. A four hour drive became an 8 hour adventure. Oh well. Smidgen was well taken care of, but apparently, wasn't much fun cause she was lonely. Thanks for the effort, though, catsitters! Steve is buying new tires today, so we should be back in top form shortly.