Does the picture look familiar?
It’s Deja Vu all over again!
So my friend Jeff just purchased and “new” vehicle. Well it is new to him anyway. The biggest problem with this vehicle is the location. It was in Pulaski, TN. Feeling sympathetic for Jeff (not something I am prone to do) I volunteered to ride along with him on the drive down to pick it up and bring it home. We set out on Friday morning driving his dad’s truck and towing a neighbor’s trailer. Things seem to be going good for a while, but let me tell you that is a LOOOOONG drive.
Before I proceed let me give you a background story. A friend at work came by my desk earlier this week and we are chatting and he mentions he is heading to Nashville for the weekend. I mention I am passing by Nashville on my way to Pulaski and we move on. Thursday at work my phone rings and it is Sean. I answer and he asks if I am still heading to Nashville this weekend. I say I am am and he asks for a favor. Apparently his roomie forgot his wallet here in DC when they took off so he asks if I mind getting the wallet and bringing it down to TN. I tell him I do not mind but he has to convince the Apartment complex to let me in. for those of you who have eveer stayed in an apartment you know this is near impossible. Using all of his manly grace he convinces them and I am able to get the wallet. I will not go into details because that is not the point of the blog.
Back to the story....
So we are cruising along and I decide to call Sean to work out plans to meet to give him the wallet. While working out the plans we realize the GPS is taking us a route that completely bypasses Nashville which is where Sean is at. furthermore we discover that if we do go through Nashville 2 things are going to happen. First we will arrive at the same time Sean is suppose to pick up his girlfriend at the airport. Second, we will arrive right at rush hour. One thing I did want to do is go by and see the double arch bridge on the Natchez-Trace from the road beneath the bridge (what can I say I am a dorky bridge engineer). I punch in the location of the bridge as a via point on our trip to Pulaski and the GPS is kind enough to recalculate our optimal route which now takes us past the Nashville airport and around the Nashville by-pass. I tell Sean I will call him when we get close to the airport, but we are not taking that trailer through the airport traffic. As we get closer (about 15 minutes out) I call Sean and as fate would have it he is at the airport picking up his girlfriend. We make plans for an alternate location to meet and go on about the trip. Then as if planned comes the rush hour traffic. This must have slowed Sean down more than us because he calls just as we are getting on I-65 to say they just found a place off the second exit on I-65. We make the drop (in traffic) and head back out. fortunately the optimal route to the bridge takes us on back roads and we are able to avoid traffic. We arrive at the bridge and to my disappointment the time of day and the surroundings make for very poor photos, but I do my best and we are on our way.
We finally arrive in Pulaski about 1 hour after the original plan. We load up the trailer and begin the trek home. I tell Jeff I can go as far as he feels like driving that night, so we take off. We get back to I-40 and decide we are both hungry and he is tired so we find a nice exit with a waffle house and a Hampton Inn. After dinner we head to the Hampton Inn to see about lodging. After much miscommunication we end up with 2 smoking rooms instead of the 1 nonsmoking with double beds we had hoped for.
Next morning we get ready to head out only to find it is raining which I anticipate making the trip fun. we get back on the interstate and the weather clears for a bit and we are cruising along until we decide to seek out a sonic for lunch. Again the GPS is useful and locates one about 1 hour away just a little off the interstate. we head there for lunch and enjoy a good sonic lunch . Since I do not get sonic often I decide to get a slush after the meal and I notice they have happy hour specials with all drinks for 1/2 price 2-4 pm everyday. Since it is 1:50 we decide to wait till 2:00. At 2:02 I proceed to order my creamslush and the total comes to $2.08, I pay and realize it is not half price. No biggie I will mention it to the girl when she brings it back and get $1 back. I take another look on the menu and realize the creamslushes are the one drink not included in the special. All that waiting and nothing.
We head back out and Jeff is driving an looks down at the trailer brake and sees no light. We pull over to check the connection and realize that at some point the cable has dragged and torn to the point we do not have a connection to the trailer any longer. with about half the trip yet to drive we look up a carquest on the GPS and thy fortunately have one replacement plug. We head over there and lose a good hour in the parking lot making a field repair to the trailer. the kick is even after the field repair we are down to only one light on the trailer working. Tired and ready to hit the road we admit defeat and and head back out thankful we at least got the brakes working.
the next half of the trip is spent driving through complete down pours mixed with patches of light rain. We finally pull up to Jeff’s House at 9:00 pm, a mere 13 hours after we left that morning. Next comes the fun of unloading the trailer in the rain. For those of you unaware, trying to stop a vehicle on a metal trailer in the rain with bad brakes is near impossible, fortunately driver, trailer, vehicle and spotter are all ok.
