Traveling!

We're back, but not without another traveling mishap! Last December we went up to Montana to spend Christmas with Jason's parents. Our flight was cancelled so we had to drive up there which wasn't too bad, but on our way back our windshield wipers weren't working. We were in Idaho, and of course they are horrible about cleaning off their roads, it was like an ice trap. A car passed us and spit the dirty wet snow from the road onto our windshield, and as we frantically tried to get the wipers to work we slid off the road into the area in between our side of the road and the other side (with the oncoming traffic). Thankfully nothing happened to the car, but we weren't able to push the car out of the ditch. We dug the snow out from under the tires, we pushed the thing with all of our strength. It moved a tiny tiny bit, but not enough to get the car to move back onto the freeway. Someone finally called a tow-truck for us and they pulled us out of the ditch effortlessly. The only problem was that they towed us all the way to the next town and charged us a bundle of money! It was ridiculous!
Anyways... Our new story... We were on our way home from a fantastic Vacation in Montana. We were about 3 1/2 hours into our 10 hour drive, on a two lane highway going about 70 mph, and not really a car (or big semi-truck) in sight. We were listening to music and all of a sudden we heard a pppfffsssssssss sound, we quickly pulled to the side of the road and both knew, without having to look, what had just happened. Our tire was dead!

**We got our oil changed the day before we left. Good old Wal*Mart, not only did they change the oil, they also checked our tires. They told us that the tread on our back two tires was too low. If we were going to have our car inspected it would not have passed, but that didn't stop us and we went on our merry way. We checked the air pressure, and filled the tires with a little air, and then we were gone. 

Luckily Jason and I know how to change a tire and we had a never been used spare in the trunk. Not so lucky, we also had all of our luggage in the trunk. I transferred everything from the trunk to the backseat of the car so we could get the spare out, while Jason called his parents to see if there was a tire store in one of the nearby towns (25 miles away). 

We switched out our flat tire with the donut and shoved our completely bald tire into the trunk. We got to the town and it had a Les Schwab tire store there. Fantastic! Our car is kind of annoying in certain ways, it requires the premium unleaded gasoline, and really expensive tires! We got our old tires at a Les Schwab, and we were hoping they would have our tires at the one in Dillon, Montana (which is where we were). 

We pulled up to the tire store, a man came out and seeing the donut on our car guessed we had a flat, which of course was correct! We went into the store and he looked up the kind of tires we would need. We decided to get two new tires because the back right tire was flat, and the back right tire was just about to die itself. 

A couple of minutes later he came back and told us they didn't have the same tires as the ones on our car, my heart dropped a little. They did however, have the right kind for our car, but they were a little bit more expensive. 

It reminded me of Arrested Development where the doctor says, "he's going to be alright." The family was relieved and the doctor said he would be taking it worse than the family was and they asked him why. "Because he's going to be all right. He lost his left hand." 

We got the tires on in record time (only half an hour!) and were on our way once more. We got home at 10:30, just in time to watch the Simpsons. And by The Simpsons, I of course mean an "infomercial".