My Weekend Adveture...
Had to take a few days break from my blog...not that I wanted to, but the the fact that I had been sick and hadn't caught up on my rest, FINALLY caught up with me. PLUS the fact that I had to prepare to work on Friday and Saturday in Clearwater at Stampfest (a rubberstamping/art type convention).
I did manage to take out the camera a few times though and grab some shots.
This is one from our crazy adventure on Friday. It is usually just a bit over two hours for us to get to Clearwater from where we live. So my mom, my oldest daughter and I drop the younger two kids off at school at 8 and hit the road.
We are cruising nicely down I-75 when all of a sudden we hear a tire pop! POOF!! ACKKK!! Thankfully there is nice wide paved shoulders on the Interstate and we pull off to check the damage. Tire is hopeless...so I give AAA a call...cause this road is BUSY and I'm not standing on the side of it changing a tire with semis whipping past at over 70 miles an hour! After I describe to them where I'm at...what I can see, where I was headed, etc, etc...they say someone will be there in about 45 minutes. AHH...THAT we can handle...so we wait and wait.
Next thing you know they are calling me back saying they can't place where I am at....but they think that I am around mile marker 275. I tell them I am not sure...as we weren't near any of the mile markers for me to read and I could only read a blue sign ahead that says Rest Area 2 miles, the rest of the signs up the road were too far to read. One lady at AAA asked me to walk to the rest stop and get the mile marker #..and told her, NO I was NOT hiking two miles to the rest area and leaving my mother and daughter who could NOT walk that far in the van on the side of the road!
AAA advised me to call Florida Highway Patrol and see if I could get a better idea on just WHERE I was. It's not like I was off on some deserted road...GOSH I'm sitting on the side of a major HIGHWAY and no one can find me. FUN? NOT!!
...so, to continue...
...after talking to FHP, they thought I must be around mile marker #277 and they would send someone out to check on us until AAA got there....and NOT to get out of our vehicle...which is OK by me, as I have NO plans of getting out of it! I call AAA back and tell them where FHP says we are, and they say no problem give them about half hour more and someone would be there.
....wait, wait...wait, wait and WAIT!!! ...a couple conversations with AAA later and still no one is showing up!
THEN a light bulb turns ON!!! DUH! I have my camera right there by me, with my zoom lens! LOL so I take a picture of the signs WAY down the highway that none of us in the van can read from where we are sitting, then I CHIMP it on the back of the camera and zoom in to read the next exit sign!!! YES we have a NUMBER!!! Exit 309!
...so they are looking for me 30 miles OFF! Of course they are never going to find me!
Here is the shot that finally saved the day. LOL, wasn't looking for composition, white balance or ANY of those things. JUST SHOW ME A NUMBER!!!! LOL
...and a shot of my chimping view!!!
I call AAA back and FHP back and tell them where to find me. It still took a LONG time after that, as they were 30 miles south of me, and had to go almost 30 miles NORTH of me to get off on an exit to turn around and come back south to me. FHP arrived about 10 minutes before AAA, and very kindly checked on us to make sure we were ok and stayed until the truck got there.
AAA got us changed to my donut spare and the next part of our saga began. Limping along at 50 mph or less we had to go more than 50 miles to find a tire store...as we had popped the tire way out between towns. Finally got to a Tire Kingdom and got the tire changed. (Why is it that even if they are NOT busy, and NO one else it waiting that it still takes an HOUR to change ONE tire. HECK they changed it out on the rim without even taking the van inside. They only pulled the van inside to actually put in on and to restow the donut)
...well to shorten an already TOO long of a story, we finally made it to where we were supposed to be about 4:30 in the afternoon. SO...what should have been just over a 2 hour drive turned into an 8 hour adventure. LOL, well it did get me out of 8 hours manual labor of setting up the booth...but I really would have rather been doing that instead of sitting on the side of the road being buffeted by the winds created by the semis blowing past!!!
(...note...halfway home on Saturday night, I have another big DUH moment. I had my laptop with me. ON that laptop I have Microsoft Streets and Trips AND I have a GPS that attaches to my computer that coordinates with the program. I could have popped on the laptop...attached the GPS and told them down to the lattitude and longitude where I was...or at the very least I could have found out what exit on the highway I was close to. AHH well...live and LEARN.)
I did manage to take out the camera a few times though and grab some shots.
This is one from our crazy adventure on Friday. It is usually just a bit over two hours for us to get to Clearwater from where we live. So my mom, my oldest daughter and I drop the younger two kids off at school at 8 and hit the road.
We are cruising nicely down I-75 when all of a sudden we hear a tire pop! POOF!! ACKKK!! Thankfully there is nice wide paved shoulders on the Interstate and we pull off to check the damage. Tire is hopeless...so I give AAA a call...cause this road is BUSY and I'm not standing on the side of it changing a tire with semis whipping past at over 70 miles an hour! After I describe to them where I'm at...what I can see, where I was headed, etc, etc...they say someone will be there in about 45 minutes. AHH...THAT we can handle...so we wait and wait.
Next thing you know they are calling me back saying they can't place where I am at....but they think that I am around mile marker 275. I tell them I am not sure...as we weren't near any of the mile markers for me to read and I could only read a blue sign ahead that says Rest Area 2 miles, the rest of the signs up the road were too far to read. One lady at AAA asked me to walk to the rest stop and get the mile marker #..and told her, NO I was NOT hiking two miles to the rest area and leaving my mother and daughter who could NOT walk that far in the van on the side of the road!
AAA advised me to call Florida Highway Patrol and see if I could get a better idea on just WHERE I was. It's not like I was off on some deserted road...GOSH I'm sitting on the side of a major HIGHWAY and no one can find me. FUN? NOT!!
...so, to continue...
...after talking to FHP, they thought I must be around mile marker #277 and they would send someone out to check on us until AAA got there....and NOT to get out of our vehicle...which is OK by me, as I have NO plans of getting out of it! I call AAA back and tell them where FHP says we are, and they say no problem give them about half hour more and someone would be there.
....wait, wait...wait, wait and WAIT!!! ...a couple conversations with AAA later and still no one is showing up!
THEN a light bulb turns ON!!! DUH! I have my camera right there by me, with my zoom lens! LOL so I take a picture of the signs WAY down the highway that none of us in the van can read from where we are sitting, then I CHIMP it on the back of the camera and zoom in to read the next exit sign!!! YES we have a NUMBER!!! Exit 309!
...so they are looking for me 30 miles OFF! Of course they are never going to find me!
Here is the shot that finally saved the day. LOL, wasn't looking for composition, white balance or ANY of those things. JUST SHOW ME A NUMBER!!!! LOL
...and a shot of my chimping view!!!
I call AAA back and FHP back and tell them where to find me. It still took a LONG time after that, as they were 30 miles south of me, and had to go almost 30 miles NORTH of me to get off on an exit to turn around and come back south to me. FHP arrived about 10 minutes before AAA, and very kindly checked on us to make sure we were ok and stayed until the truck got there.
AAA got us changed to my donut spare and the next part of our saga began. Limping along at 50 mph or less we had to go more than 50 miles to find a tire store...as we had popped the tire way out between towns. Finally got to a Tire Kingdom and got the tire changed. (Why is it that even if they are NOT busy, and NO one else it waiting that it still takes an HOUR to change ONE tire. HECK they changed it out on the rim without even taking the van inside. They only pulled the van inside to actually put in on and to restow the donut)
...well to shorten an already TOO long of a story, we finally made it to where we were supposed to be about 4:30 in the afternoon. SO...what should have been just over a 2 hour drive turned into an 8 hour adventure. LOL, well it did get me out of 8 hours manual labor of setting up the booth...but I really would have rather been doing that instead of sitting on the side of the road being buffeted by the winds created by the semis blowing past!!!
(...note...halfway home on Saturday night, I have another big DUH moment. I had my laptop with me. ON that laptop I have Microsoft Streets and Trips AND I have a GPS that attaches to my computer that coordinates with the program. I could have popped on the laptop...attached the GPS and told them down to the lattitude and longitude where I was...or at the very least I could have found out what exit on the highway I was close to. AHH well...live and LEARN.)
Comments
Glad that you arrived safe and sound!! M