Entries (RSS)Yeah – they never quite work out the way they’re supposed to, do they?
The plan as it started out was to leave for Minnesota on Thursday afternoon. I took the afternoon off to finish packing and take care of a couple things around the house. Mr. B only had to work until 2:30, so then he was going to get cleaned up and come to my house to get his car packed quickly. We were going to drop my car off at the shop so it could have the tires remounted and balanced and an alignment done, since it desperately needed it, and then get on the road. We wanted to get out of town well before any of the weather hit.
Well, things started out OK. I left work on time. I got home and got everything taken care of around the house. At about 3:30, Mr. B called and said there was a change in plans. He was sitting in the middle of an accident on the Bob Michael bridge. Apparently a car had died on the way up the bridge from East Peoria to Peoria and was sitting at a dead standstill. He realized the car was going slow, but not that it was completely stopped until the car in front of him ducked over to the other lane at the last minute. He had a car next to him, so he slammed on the brakes and came to a stop a few feet from the car. However, he was then hit from behind and drilled into the car anyway. Then that car was hit by a truck. So the front and rear of his car is banged up. Apparently the back end of his car was a couple inches off the ground where the car behind was wedged underneath. It was still driveable, but he didn’t want to make a long trip in it since he wasn’t completely sure what all was damaged, not to mention the back hatch wouldn’t open because of the damage.
The phone call basically consisted of him telling me he was in a car accident and we were going to have to take my car. Never once said that he was OK, though I figured he was since all he was talking about was the trip. Well, he called the car shop, Goodyear in Pekin, owned by some friends of his family to see if they could get my car in to at least get the alignment done quickly. But I’d been worried about the tires lately cause I’ve been having trouble getting traction, so I was especially nervous about going further north and in the weather that was supposed to go through Thurs. night/Fri. morning. I hurried out to the shop, and they said my tires were “iffy” and weren’t sure whether I should go with them or not. Luckily they had the correct size in stock, so in an hour they had 4 new tires mounted and balanced and an alignment done on my car. They rock.
I hurried home and met Mr. B right as he was getting there. We threw stuff into my car and got on the road right as the snow was hitting (over 2 hours after we had planned on leaving). Unfortunately we were heading out the back side of the storm, right through the areas that it had already passed through, so it was slow going. It took us 3-1/2 to 4 hrs to go from Peoria to Cedar Rapids, IA – a trip which should have taken about 2-1/2 hours. We had taken the nationwide number of Choice hotels with us and called when we stopped for dinner to find out what they had in the way of open rooms along our route when we started to figure out how far we might get. After dinner, the roads had been cleared enough that we didn’t really have any issues, though we still weren’t going full speed cause there were a couple of icy spots here and there.
The only real issue we had was slightly before we stopped for dinner. We were driving through the Quad Cities along a section of interstate three lanes wide. Still not completely sure where we were at the time. Mr. B had been on the phone for a few minutes with his family getting weather updates and filling them in on the situation with his car. I was asking him to get off the phone cause it makes me nervous when he’s on the phone and the roads are bad cause I know he’s a little less observant when he’s on the phone – though he swears in that kinda weather, he’s fully focused on the road. All of a sudden, a deer ran out in front of us. Mr. B slammed on the brakes, we started sliding, luckily pretty straight down the middle of the three lanes, and the sound of the tires must have scared the deer away cause he hopped up into the air, turned right back around and ran off. It was at that point that Mr. B then remembered my car doesn’t have anti-lock brakes. It freaked me out pretty well, but otherwise no big deal. Mr. B did get off the phone, especially cause at that point, I was pretty shaky and was really giving him a bad time about being on the phone.
The next morning, we made the rest of the trip to Minneapolis without any issue at all – and at almost full speed. He was still taking it pretty easy on the roads just cause there were some bridges that were a little slick, though nothing big enough that we really had any problem with losing traction. The rest of the weekend went without incident except we nearly bought more than we could fit into my little car, but that’s probably another post…
