So, the beast has established itself, as we drive
further and further into it's domain.
Better fasten your seatbelts boys and girls, this could be a bumpy ride tonight!
The route 24 part of Kentucky is normally a very
Pleasant drive, couple big bridges, lots of woods,
I always look forward to this part.
Not so much today, that tire has me really
spooked.
Plus, the rain has started again.
No, the cd I put in didn't help, it made it seem
like a really fake cover-up, although I am surprised
I havent' gotten any crap from you for admitting I put
"I like Dreamin'" on a cd I made myself.
Other songs on this cd are a bunch of oldies:
Circle of Life and Can you feel the Love Tonight,
by E.J..
Save your Heart for Me, Gary Lewis
Your Wildest Dreams, Moody Blues
Addicted to Love, Robert Palmer and
That's Old Fashioned by the Everly Brothers,
yes, I make strange groupings. These are just a
few of the songs on it.
We make it through Kentucky, and decide to stop at
the Tennessee welcome center rest area for a break
and to get coupon books for motels, even though we
printed out coupons at home, they are mostly for northern
Georgia which is where we were supposed to make it to,
today.
I'm beginning to think that may not happen, we are way
behind.
Just as I was going up the ramp the the welcome center,
I could sense the presence of the beast again.
Not sure what, but something seemed wrong again with the car,
or is it just my nerves acting up?
Lately, I'm not sure of anything anymore!
One good thing though, it had stopped raining again, at least for now.
We both get out of the car, and the first thing we do is look at Diane's tire.
That's right, it became her tire since it's the one right in front of her on her side of the car.
It seemed to be ok, she still couldn't hear it "hissing", but
she did think it looked like it might, "might I say", be a little
bit low.
I really, REALLY wanted to check the pressure, but I was ascared to. That means playing that game again with the valve and this time I may not be able to get it to stop leaking
if it starts again.
Plus,,,,,,,there's no saving air hose here, this is just a rest area.
So it's the visual check and the really stupid,
"Put my thumbs on the sidewall and press, then do it to
another tire and compare "
Yeah, that has a plus or minus error margin of about 20 pounds.
After staring at the tire for awhile, we both just shrug our shoulders and go inside. On the way back out she grabbed
some RoomSavers and HotelsCoupon books to read in the car.
One thing I was really greatful for on this short break was
for my tailbone.
For some reason it was already really sore, this always
happens, just usually not this soon in the drive, we're only about a third of the way there.
After we both buckle up again, I insert the key in
the ignition.
Then I turn it and start the car.
______________________________________________
Have you ever b een to a drag strip?
I used to a lot in my younger days when I owned a
Dodge Challenger. No, it wasn't the fastest car by pony car standards, but it did get well over 100 mph in the quarter mile.
One thing I had on this car is something called "Lakers", or dumps.
These are two short pipes added into both sides of the exaust with a cap on the ends.
Without even getting out of the car, I could just reach under with my left hand and swing the cap out of the way, my friend would do the same thing on the other side.
This then created an immediate outlet for the exhaust, it never made it back to the resonator or mufflers.
It's whats called "straight pipes", and very, very loud, even
louder than the Harley Boys at the Pop Century Computer Pool.
When I turned the key and started the Santa Fe, there was a slight hesitation of normal sound,
then suddenly it sounded like it was running straight pipes.
Smidgy jumped, I said, "what the...." and turned the car off.
Then I turned it on again, hopeing I guess it was all just a
bad dream.
IT wasn't!
Turning it off again I got out of the car and laid down on the wet pavement to look underneath.
That was the que to make it start raining again.
Nothing was hanging down, but I knew this wasn't just a hole in the muffler kind of thing, the main racket was coming up front, which probably means the catylytic converter is shot, rusted through, whatever.
I didn't dare touch anything, you wouldn't believe how hot these pipes can get, so once again, there I am
standing next to the car with a confused and hopeless look
on my face.
I'm getting really good at this.
I had no answers on what our next move should be.
Finally, since whatever is broke at least isn't hanging down, at least not yet, I thought we might as well try to go on, nothing can be done here anyway.
And on we went.
It was terrible loud eveytime you had to hit the accelerator,
but the sound leveled off wehn you kept it at a constant speed.
Now I have this to worry about too, along with the tire, and I know for certain, this is agonna be expensive!
But it's not just the noise that bothers me, the catylytic converter or however it's spelled controls the car's computers and fuel and oxygen mixing, if the converter isn['t connected really to the engine, can I be doing some real
damage to the engine by still running it?
As we headed east towards Nashville at least I didn't have
to worry about the light rain anymore,
it was now pouring out.
We took the Briley Parkway around Nashville, I highly recommend this to anyone coming down either 24 or 65, and
the rain is letting up at all.
It's late in the afternoon by now, no chance for Cartersville or Adairsville Ga. like I hoped, and absolutely now way do I want to go through the mountains today in the pouring rain, myy nerves are already shot!
The problem is, all this rain we are going through today has nothing
to do with hurricane or tropical storm Lee,
this stuff was just the luck of the bad draw weather system
that happens all the time.
We won't meet Lee until tomorrow.
Ok, Chattanooga is out cuz that's after the mountains, looks like it's going to be Murfreesboro again, it's about 30 miles east of Nashville.
Smidgy is checking the books for Murfree and sure enough, there once again is the good ol Safari Inn that we stayed at
last year that we affectionately called our Safari Room because I had to stay up all night with a tire iron in my
hand to protect us from the wildlife in there.
No thanks, we'll pass this time.
"How about an America's Best Value Inn?" she asked.
i thought about it:
From our experience, all chains have good and bad motels,
it all depends on who the manager/owner is, from Days Inn,
to Super 8, and we've found that all Motel 6's don't leave
the light on for you.
But we have never had a good experience with an America's
Best Value Inn before.
This is a chain that's been around for over 150 years,
Wyatt Earp and the Clantons even scheduled their
famous gunfight there, at America's Best Value Corral,
Buut before they could meet, Triple A had downgraded
the ABVC taking away 2 of the
AAA diamonds making it
now the America's Ok Corral and since all the other corrals were already booked up due to the Tumbleweed Convention they had no choice but to keep their ressies and the rest is history.
(don't ask me, my mind isn't even a nice place to visit)
Then she found a coupon for a Knight's Inn, 30 bucks for a King bed. We've found that these coupons almost always beat AAA discounts of which I'm a member.
Knight's Inn it is.
About ten minutes away from the motel, I reach into the slot under the radio for my cigarettes.......
which aren't there.
This is another "trigger" I haven't gotten over yet,, the
"right before we stop" trigger, be it motel, for gas, a rest area, welcome center, I'd always light one when I knew I was going to have to stop soon.
Oh, and whenever we passed a Stuckey's, of course.
Whetever happened to Stuckey's, they used to be everywhere?
The rain was letting up as we got off the highway, but I
didn't care, I was done.
In the lobby, it's "Sorry, no king bed available, but I can give you a gournd floor double bed for 5 bucks more,"
we took it.
When I budget these trips, I usually plan for 50 bucks a night for these kind of stays, but almost always come lower, our bill here with tax and "resort fee" was 41. something.
From what I see on the Weather Channel, it still looks like we might be able to beat Lee over to Orlando tomorrow, Lee isn't even supposed to touch Orlando, maybe just the panhandle a little bit.
Oh what a fool my momma raised!
That morning we left at dawn to cloudy skies but no rain, just like I predicted. TWC is also calling for record rainfall in Chattanooga and the northern half of Georgia, but I'm still hoping we can beat it, no rain here yet and Chatty is only around 70 miles away, or so.
The first 30 miles here are easy, then you climb ande come back down in an incredible steep incline where you don't touch your gas pedal for literally, miles.
It was just about the bottom of the steep decline that it started to rain.
The next 20 miles are easy, then you have about 30 miles of steep up and downs and arounds and abouts and doetsy does and whoopty dos.
Well, we made it through the easy part but the rain just kept getting stronger, until finally when we reached the curvy mountain parts again it was absolutely blinding!
Neither of us could really see a thing and once again
I didn't know what to do.
I couldn't just stop, huge trucks were still all around me,
I tried to follow the tail lights of a truck but the spray they sent up
made it even worse!
I kept waiting to either run off the road, run into someone next to me,
or run into a vehicle in front of me it was that bad!
Finally there was an exit on a curve and I just took the exit ramp off the highway, I just had to get off of it.
Pulled into a gas station at the bottom and parked the car under an overhang and let our a HUGE sigh of relief.
then we waited
and waited
and waited a little more, it's going on 9:30 by now, and my "We're burning daylight" gland is acting up.
All my worries are all still there, we did check the tire this morning, at least visually, I'm still afraid to put the gauge on it, but it seems to be holding it's own, and the exhaust
at least still isn't hanging down yet.
But I did reach under this morning when the pipes were still cold, and there was a lot of rust flaking down when I touched part of the system. I also knew that with the break in the system, there is now a whole lot more weight that the rest of the pipes have to support, the last thing I want
is the whole thing to come down while I'm on the highway.
If a tailpipe or muffler falls partly down at the back, it just drags on the ground throwing up lots of sparks from the concrete and the worst that usually happens is that the gas tank explodes and you die a fiery death.
But if a part of the system falls front forward to the ground and is still connected at the rear, you not only have the possible explosion but the risk that the next little crack or pothole in the road may send the entire pipe shooting straight up through the floorboards into someone inside!
Plus, now we get to throw in the blinding rain on top of these things, OH JOY !
The rain was not letting up in the slightest, and the weatherman said it's not going to until maybe later tonight.
A family next to us was also going to Atlanta, and we could follow them if we want, but neither of us was in a hurry to get back out there.
Finally, they left, and I decided, what the heck, let's go and we were right behind.
We didn't even make it to the interstate and we totally lost these folks already.
Back on the highway, it was worse now than even before.
I couldn't believe that was possible!
I've had better visibility in a car wash!
On a motorcycle!
Don't ask!
I somehow by the grace of God made it through Chattanooga, well, most of it anyway, and right about 2 miles before it was time to pick up rt. 75 I had to get off this death road right then and there, i knew I was out of borrowed luck.
We also knew 75 would not be any better, in fact, it may be worse because it has more lanes.
Once again we are under cover in a gas station and I use the time to fill it up again, even though it really doesn't n eed it.
Turns out I was glad I did, for one thing it was real cheap there, 3.39 at the time which blew away the 3.89 we are paying up here.
Then we sat and discussed the situation;
What do we do?
Really, what in the world do we do?
No way I can drive in this, uh uh, no way, at least
not if we want to stay alive.
It's only 10:30 in the morning, oh man, the last thing in
the world we want to have to do is get a room now, plus, we don't even know where the heck we are now, really.
This wouldn't have been a good situation with a healthy car, but we are still in the throes of a double whammy yet, the bad tire and the exhaust, what would happen if we broke down on the road in this kind of weather?
From our protected covering I looked out the side window up at the sky, but it was a complete and total solid mass of gray, everywhere you looked.
After thinking some more about it I knew pretty much what I had to do.
I curled up into a fetal position and began sucking my thumb.
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Well, Marita was right, I never did quite make it to where i was going to post a couple pics, she knows me too well by now I guess, but next chapter for sure.
I hope you didn't have any more tire trouble, but something tells me that wouldn't be the Nebo and Smidgy way.
!
I can picture her standing at the front door after she has locked it up again and watching you pull out of the driveway talking to the invisible wife you think you have with you.
I know I've never seen them together either, and if I do; I hope it's through a mutual meeting.
