Sunday March 24th, 2013

The exercise:

Write about something: flat.

Safe and sound with my parents in Comox this evening, after Max's very first boat ride. Though he seemed more interested in staring at the vending machines on the ferry than out the window at the water and islands.

The first portion of our journey, going from Osoyoos to Vancouver, went pretty smoothly. Well, other than...

Mine:

After two hours on the road, we decided to make a stop in Princeton for a bathroom break and to maybe grab some lunch. With Max fast asleep in his car seat, I pulled into a gas station just off the highway and we took turns using the facilities.

Once we were ready to go again, Kat took her turn behind the wheel and... got about ten feet before an odd noise brought us back to our parking spot. I got out to take a look and, sure enough, our back right tire was completely flat.

I'll spare you the various expletives that were aired at that point.

I called our emergency roadside service number and they sent someone to come put on our spare, which was: a) buried beneath a mountain of stuff in our trunk and b) only a donut, not a full-size tire. So that meant: a) dumping all our stuff in the parking lot, b) repacking the trunk after the spare was put on, and c) driving to a garage to get a proper tire put on.

There was a fun five or ten minutes at the garage, during which it sounded like they didn't have a tire that would fit our car. I kinda wondered if that might be an issue when I walked through the door and saw nothing but huge truck tires on the walls. Anyway, the guys eventually found one that worked and got it on the car and we got back on the road.

All told, it was about a two hour delay. Max was a champ during all this, finding the whole thing rather entertaining. And then he was back to sleep shortly after we were moving westward once more.

Could have done without all that hassle, but it could have been much worse. At least we got the flat in town, and not during the lengthy passage through the park that we were about to make. There's not much in the way of gas stations or garages in that stretch.