Trailmix Glorious Travels

[trailmix 77]

I'm glad Sismix and Tom Mix like their new names, just think, if they have another child they can always call the baby Admix.

Sense of humour? Road trips through Montana and expensive mechanical difficulties have a way of attenuating the joy of the open road.

2866 miles, that's insane. Makes the Toronto to Spokane run (2300 miles) seem like Sunday drive. At least you got to stop and rest for the night, must have been nice.

BTW, last I heard Len was in a strip poker game in Whitefish and doing rather well. Lots of nekkid cowboys roaming the streets sobbing inconsolably.

Yeah, the whole broken down car in Tennessee thing - ok, first of all I signed us up with CAA before we left, because I'm thinking hey, if the car breaks down, who will we call!

So, first of all, before you reach Kimball (which is basically also South Pittsburg) there is this steep grade. The ford guy who was shuttling us around to the hotel told me that they get around 2-3 people in per week during the tourist season because of said grade and normally it's the transmission. I say to Tennessee FIX THE ROAD. ahem.

Anyhoo, car is running fine and we go down said hill and all of sudden we hear a sound like water hitting the car, which of course it was. So Mike pulls over to the shoulder, car stops. It's 80 degrees and not a cloud in sight. It's so hot I kind of feel sick.

You know when you see a car on the side of the highway and you pull over to the inside lane. Ok, well they were not doing that and it's a busy busy area. Anyway so I get out of the car with Mike and I call triple A right away. Tell someone the whole thing and where we are, she transfers me to someone else and I give her all the same information. No problem, she will put a priority call out, should be someone there in 40 minutes to an hour. About 40 minutes later I call them again.

Put on hold for a long time, she comes back, should be 40 minutes to an hour. Hmmm. Also the cat is still in the car, but she seems to be dealing with it.

Anyway, about 40 minutes later the tow truck pulls up, happy to see him and his air conditioned truck!! He takes us to the ford dealership. Then the shuttle guys drives us to the 3 motels in town. Comfort Inn, America's best value and Country Hearth Inn. Ok, Comfort and Country Hearth won't accept a cat. So we end up at el dumpo - I tend to think this wasn't even a legit 'America's best'. It was dirty, dark, the windows were huge store type windows - you get the idea. Our clorox cloths were still in the car so we walked to the gas station to get lysol to disinfect everything.

One other thing. We had picked up an Alltel phone in Nebraska, because although we had purchased some roaming minutes for our Canadian phone, we thought we should get a U.S. phone as we couldn't get a signal in like South Dakota etc.. I had charged the Canadian phone the night before because I called my Mom. When we broke down I grabbed that phone to call triple A.

The Alltel phone has never worked, so I'm glad I had our good old Canadian one

Edited April 21, 2008 by trailmix

[trailmix 77]

Oh and I forgot to mention, when the tow truck guy got there he was so mad at the people for not pulling over (he was waving them over) that he actually spit on one of the trucks as it whizzed by!

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Oh and I forgot to mention, when the tow truck guy got there he was so mad at the people for not pulling over (he was waving them over) that he actually spit on one of the trucks as it whizzed by!

Wow that really sucks. The big hill reminds of Wheeling, WV I was walking around town (what else is there to do) and there was a huge hill and I wondered if the car broke down, what would happen. Thank God they salted that hill. I hate people who don't go around a stalled vehicle.

I had no idea that people in TN had such poor manners, what happened to Southern Hospitality? Glad you remembered to disinfect everything. You really don't want to know what transpired in those places. I'd be afraid to sleep under the covers. Yikes!!!!!

[Krikit 1,164]

Yuck. What a crappy experience. I wouldn't have gone to their damn cornbread festival either.

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Yuck. What a crappy experience. I wouldn't have gone to their damn cornbread festival either.

After hearing about this, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't a cornhole festival.

[Autumnchik 6]

Wow, what a crappy experience in TN. Glad you are outta there at least!

[Leafgal 3]

Glad you got through the experience and are safe and sound. Something to remember your trip by, when it becomes funny in a few months.

[Flames9_RN 358]

Im boycotting cornbread!!!

[trailmix 77]

Glad you got through the experience and are safe and sound. Something to remember your trip by, when it becomes funny in a few months.

lol funny you should say that, I think I made a similar comment while sitting in the grass beside the road (knocking off the little green bugs as they landed on my legs)

[Krikit 1,164]

Glad you got through the experience and are safe and sound. Something to remember your trip by, when it becomes funny in a few months.

lol funny you should say that, I think I made a similar comment while sitting in the grass beside the road (knocking off the little green bugs as they landed on my legs)

[trailmix 77]

Ok, so now about roads!

America, you should be proud of your highways - they are well maintained and generally easy to navigate (exception - grade in Tennessee as mentioned above).

We had originally decided to kind of go around big cities, but we didn't. St. Louis, Nashville, Atlanta. Carla, maybe you can shed some light on the St. Louis roads When you drive in to these places you would think there were 7 million people there, in some places the roadways are 7 lanes! Where are all these people coming from?? When you only have your google map instructions and you are whizzing along it's really hard to make like 8 lane changes for 6 different exits you have to take

Also, in Missouri they have letters on their signs, like Exit 78 - D E, Exit 79 M N, we never did figure out what those extra letters meant, I guess it's a local secret?

Quite a bit of roadwork going on out there, which is a good thing. One thing I did notice in Georgia - lots and lots of tires, which had blown up, by the side of the highway. I found this strange as you see maybe one a state, but in Georgia it's like the state decoration.

[Krikit 1,164]

OMG. I can SO relate to your road report, Trailmix.

The other thing that drives me batty is the non-stop road construction. I mean it's non-stop in the SAME place, year after year after year. They don't finish up and move on down the road. They just put up the barriers and leave. After about a year or two they come back, tear up the road, then leave again. It's never-ending. When we first flew down here on our house-hunting trip it was July 2005 and there was road construction in front of our hotel. It is now three years later..... AND THE SAME ROAD CONSTRUCTION IS STILL THERE!!!!! I tell you, if I was a business owner in this town (because all their accesses are blocked) the Town Council would be cringing at the mention of my name. My husband actually read in the paper that "they" were going to offer the road construction firm a bonus if they would finish the job. #######? That was last Fall, though, so I guess the bonus must not have been big enough because they're still there.

[trailmix 77]

It's funny, we picked up all these little books at the supermarket yesterday, the real estate ones and the job ones etc.

So my Husband is looking at the job one and there is an ad for truck drivers, 'No experience, No problem'!! The funny thing is it's for Werner Trucking - which he made comments on all the way here for their lack of driving skills.

[shawna7 4]

Im boycotting cornbread!!!

cornholing still good though?

[Krikit 1,164]

It's funny, we picked up all these little books at the supermarket yesterday, the real estate ones and the job ones etc.

So my Husband is looking at the job one and there is an ad for truck drivers, 'No experience, No problem'!! The funny thing is it's for Werner Trucking - which he made comments on all the way here for their lack of driving skills.

I wonder if that's the truck that almost hit me head-on yesterday? Seriously. Watch out for the trucks around here. I've been in more near-misses in the last year than in my entire life in Canada.