My friend Jenna and I went to Arkansas this weekend. We had decided to go down there to visit Justin Casey, a friend of mine from high school. We went to Harding University to attend his formal. Jenna went with Justin and I went with his friend James Stathopulo.
The road trip to Arkansas is supposed to take 6 1/2 hours from Fayette. Jenna and I started out at 10:00 in Kirksville and drove to Fayette to switch vehicles with Mom. Between Kirksville and Macon I got a speeding ticket.......thanks for the lead foot, Johnmeyers. My ticket upset me....being the poor college student that I am. So the rest of the ride to Fayette was rather quiet.
By the time we were actually on the road to Arkansas we were running about two hours behind schedule....oh well. Yet another thing passed down in the Johnmeyer family.
We filled up the gas in Cave City, AR about an hour away from Searcy. About 5 miles from the gas station Jenna and I looked at each other "What was that?!" She asked with a worried expression. I pulled off to the side of the road, opened the door and looked at the front drivers tire..."Oh, nothing! Just a flat tire."
Five minutes later we were laying flat on our stomachs. It was cold, you don't understand. Jenna was attempting to jack up the car. "Yay!!! I got it!!!" There was a lot of jumping up and down and clapping. I tried pulling the tire off the car, and of course that resulted in the car falling off the jack. Go us. So, once again....we have a flat tire. I stand beside the road waving my arms like a frantic person (I think I scared the locals). After a highway patrolman and truck had slowed and kept going we had almost given up hope of ever getting to Searcy. There was a lot of screaming ("I hate Arkansas people!!!" being the main one). 15 minutes later the highway patrolman and local police officer came to what we thought would be our rescue. <sigh> "Finally."
No such luck. Neither of the officers had ever seen a tire like the one on Mom's car. Really people, it's a GEO PRISM! They're pretty common cars. They tried to fix the tire, we got cold. We sat in the cop car (which are extremely comfortable). They gave up and called a wrecker. Yes, I said wrecker. 45 minutes later the wrecker pulled up, took a hammer, and knocked the tire off. "Wow, that was hard."
So, about 2 hours and $20 dollars later, we were once again headed to Searcy, AR. Around 10:30 we rolled into Searcy...5 hours after we were supposed to be there. Somehow we had managed to turn a 6 1/2 hour trip into a 12 hour trip. Once again, Go us.
So instead of our original plan of eating dinner at the Olive Garden in Little Rock with our friends and some other people, we ended up at the Waffle House with Justin. Yumm....grilled cheese. No wait, not even a whole grilled cheese, just half...with some orange juice and water.
The next morning (more like afternoon by the time Jenna was ready) we drove to Little Rock to eat lunch. First we had to add some oil to the car, poor thing. The trip was fine, we hit some traffic, but no accidents. While pulling into the restaurant I looked up "Why is my engine smoking?!!" This would be the point where I almost started crying....again. We popped the hood and there was oil......everywhere! The cap was just sitting there beside where it was supposed to be. How we didn't lose that I don't know...but I'm glad we didn't.
Needless to say, the rest of our weekend was really good. We had lots of fun with the guys, they're all good guys. They kept us laughing all weekend. Thanks guys, we appreciate that a lot. However, we really need to discuss the next trip to Arkansas. Maybe you all can come up here... :)
Love,
Kate and Jenna |
