Wipe out!

We’re on our way to San Diego. Huge metal pole in the middle of the freeway. The car in front of me clips it and knocks it right in my path. I can’t avoid hitting it. It flys up behind me…I’m looking in the rear view mirror expecting to see it fly into someone’s windshield…and pop! Thunk, thunk, thunk….right front tire is flat! And we are in the middle of a five lane highway. Traffic whizzing by at 80 m.p.h.! Luckily my dad did not let me get my license without knowing how to change a tire! The hard part though, was trying to do this with crazy fast traffic flying by. I was doing it though. Our luggage lined against the side of the median, my ass sticking out from under the car…London standing guard, waving at cars, making sure they wouldn’t hit me! Thankfully, a tow truck driver had been driving by and pulled over to help us. I would’ve been able to do it myself, but not as fast as he did!

The best part was feeling like we were in a NASCAR race. All of sudden the lovely, helpful tow truck driver says “okay, pack up the car…10 seconds till take off! Let’s go, let’s go!” We look behind us and there is a motorcycle cop stopping traffic. He’s driving back and forth across all five lanes, not letting anyone through. They stopped the whole freeway, just for us! It was pure craziness. Never seen anything like it before. London kept screaming, “ OMG! They stopped traffic for us. Do you see this? All five lanes of traffic, stopped..just for us!!!” So we threw the suitcases in the car and took off on my little donut tire. Thankfully there was a Firestone right down the street from the next exit and I got a new tire. What an experience!