December 2011 Trip, Part 2
D23's 2011 Magic and Merriment
Please see Part 1 for cast and plot summary...
Day 0, Sunday, Dec 4th. On the road!
(Or, "It does have to get better, doesn't it?")
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Everything's uneventful until 154 miles into the trip. Somewhere around Frankfort, IN (CR 500S and I-65), at 9:30 in the morning. I hear a *BANG*, and then something rattles around in my right rear wheel well. The steering goes squirrelly, and I pull over onto the shoulder. Flat tire, more like a blowout. I wonder what I ran over.
I take everything out of the trunk, and everything fits in the car except my suitcase and two-wheeler. I get out the jack and the doughnut, and loosen the lug nuts, jack up the car, and... and... I can't get the wheel off the axle. Bummer. Shake the tire, kick it a little, nope, not coming off. I don't want to shake it too hard, that's how people win Darwin awards.
A few months ago I hit a pothole (it was dark, and you couldn't see it until it was too late) and not only put a bubble in the tire (and had to get a new one, only to find they no longer made the tire I had), but bent the wheel. I talked to my Nissan dealer, and he knew a guy who does a decent job straightening alloy wheels. I held off a couple of weeks while getting something else done (might have been my May trip to WDW), and finally brought it into my dealer to get the work done. The spare was put on the car until the wheel was done. It should take two days.
Four working days later, the wheel still isn't done. Apparently, they repainted the wheel silver, which is what the normal color for that year was. Problem was, I had a 20th Anniversary model of the car, which had gunmetal gray wheels. So they had to take it back and refinish it.
The wheel I couldn't get off was that wheel. (Easy to tell, three of them are beat up, and one looks brand new. :-)) I suspect some residue of some sort on the wheel caused it to stick.
I hand tighten the lug nuts on the car, lower it, and when doing so, don't notice the donut is leaning up against the car, and it takes part of the trim off my door. I'm not mad or surprised. I sort of expected it. Surprised would have been if nothing else goes wrong. It's going to be that kind of day.
Get in the car and call AAA. Give them all my details. Membership number, where I am, etc. (I'm able to identify exactly where I am on Karen. An increasing number of people have GPS's, they should be able to take Earth coordinates and find you.) After hanging up, I text Jenny and PiC. I'm screwed.
I then consult Karen again, and there's a category for auto repair places. Not a single local place is open. I finally type in "Goodyear". The first (closest) place doesn't answer. The second is just about to go to an answering machine, when someone answers. Yes! They're open today until 5pm. They're in Speedway, IN, right next to Indy, and on the way! Deal! I tell Karen to remember where the place is.
1 hour 10 minutes after the initial call, a guy shows up. He uses a heavy floor jack to jack the car up. He brings out a hand sledge hammer and taps the rim. Nope. He finds a piece of rubber from a semi who's retread tires came apart, and bangs on it a few time. Finally the *$&#@(@_$*%& comes off. No obvious large holes, but I didn't inspect it that closely.
5 minutes later, I'm on the road. Again.
1.5 miles down the road is a rest area. I get off to wash my hands, and well, use the rest are for what it's really there for, and it's not to rest. While finishing the act, my phone rings. It's from Oklahoma. It's AAA making a courtesy call on how the job was handled.
34 miles later, I get to the exit for the Goodyear dealer.... And it's closed for construction. I go to the next exit, and Karen already has a route for me. I get to the Goodyear dealer, who has free wifi, and send e-mail to Jenny (who I was supposed to have lunch with) and Lisa (and Andy who I was supposed to have dinner with.)
So long as I'm there, I replace two other tires which are usable, but pretty worn. If it were summer, I might not replace them, but it's winter, and you're pretty much screwed without tread in the snow. (I mention that only for you people who rarely see the white stuff...) The fourth was replaced last year when another tire suffered a sidewall bubble.
After earning a few more Disney Reward Dollars, I'm done! Ready to hit the road again!
About 4.5 hours lost. On a Sunday morning, no less. Helps that Indy
is in Eastern Time. I mean, it could be worse, it could be raining.
It has started raining. It continues to rain, then it rains harder. And harder. After dealing with it for about 30 minutes, I call PiC and see if she's by a computer. She looks up weather.com for me, and sez there's this big red thing going right over I-65.
It will stop past Louisville. The rain stops 50 miles past Louisville.
I get off on TN-109, take the road (much of which is a 4-lane new road) to I-40 then to Lebanon to meet Jenny for Lunch, now Dinner. I get to Demo's about 4:45pm. I gotta say, the pot roast was delicious.
I give her back her cat carrier that I took Louie home in, and the cooler I took the turkey home in, and suddenly I have all sorts of room in the back seat. In exchange I get cookies. :-) Whadda deal! I say "Hi" to Hank the Wonderdog. I get back in the car, and I smell like Hank the Wonderdog. I remind myself not to scratch my eyes, rub my nose...
I backtrack 3 miles on I-40, and take 281 South to I-24. I so much prefer this route than going through Nashville. I would have hit Nashville about 4:30 today, and wouldn't that have been fun.
I make it Monteagle, Tennessee. Best Western had a black Friday deal, where you will get a $20 gift card to Amazon (or target or someplace else I don't remember) if you bought a $100 travel card, which is really no more than a number you print out. An instant 21% profit, since I'm going to use it within days. (The extra 1% is from the credit card.)
I empty out half my wallet to check in (Drivers license, AAA card, credit card, Gold Crown Reward card and the printed travel card.) This is another independent owned Best Western, and has very nice themeing. I can smell the smoke from The Smoke House next door. They have a buffet. I would eat myself sick there if I hadn't already eaten. I consider it anyway. I eventually, and sadly reject the idea.
I'm done with the day by 7:30 central. That's 8:30 Eastern. I should be operating on Eastern, but this part of Tennessee is on Central Time.
Moral of the day. A GPS and a cell phone are essential in a car emergency. It may take some time (it was a Sunday Morning after all in central Indiana) but it's better than walking a few miles to find a phone...
Oh, and the Bear's chances for a playoff spot went out with Cutler's thumb. sigh.
Mileage:581
Moving Time: 8:49
Moving Average: 66
Stopped 54:48
Overall Avg:60
Total time 9:44
(Note: Karen doesn't count time when she isn't on. Like when waiting for AAA or at a Goodyear dealer, otherwise I'd have a Overall Avg of 41mph...)
Day 1, Monday, Dec 5. I have arrived! Again!
I get up about 4am. I'm stopped way short of my original destination, and I have to get on the road. The room has one of those single serving coffee makers, with some terrible Mexican organic coffee. Ugh. Take a star off their rating for that...
I'm out of the hotel by 4:30am, it's 54 degrees, and the wind is blowing incredibly hard.
I stop for gas, even though I have more than 1/2 tank. I'd rather buy gas here than Georgia, since gas in Tennessee is cheaper than in Georgia. The Shell station is closed, but I've yet to see a closed Shell station where you still can't get gas.
Monteagle is the exit right before the drop down into the valley that I-24 runs through, a 7% grade for several miles. I'm off the gas, but only attain 60mph downhill due to the headwind.
It's still dark when I'm going through a relatively empty Chattanooga. It's not long before I'm in Georgia, where the sun starts to lighten the dark skies.
I am though Marietta a couple hours before I can call Lisa, and have to bypass breakfast with them. sigh. I have stuff for them in the car. Would have been nice to see them again.
Rush hour through Atlanta starts about 11 miles before the City. I come to a complete stop a couple of times. Ugh. It's an anomaly though, and am through Atlanta with relative ease. Certainly not as bad as some of the evening rush hours I've been through.
It is, however, 51 degrees. I'm DISAPPOINTED!
I'm unable to get through all of Georgia without getting gas. Oh well. Still not as expensive as Chicago gas.
At 12:15 (Eastern) I enter Florida. I've passed that imaginary warm weather line, and it's 77 degrees. Off come my sweats, and have shorts on underneath. Lot of people changing into shorts. Welcome to Florida.
Just North of MM 418 is a wolf pack. I've seen a half-dozen troopers here, today there are only two.
I try to top off the gas tank in Ocala, but since Citibank cut the perks on my Shell card, I've stopped using it in favor of one that's giving me a higher percentage rebate on gas. Since it's not a Shell card, the reader at the pump won't authenticate the card. So I have to give them a dollar amount I want to put in the car. This makes it impossible to fill the tank. So I give them an estimate ($30?) and it fails to fill the tank. It comes close, but I'm not going to go back in for another $5 in gas. Oh well, their sales they're losing...
I am on the Ronald Regan Turnpike by 2:30, the traditional point where I know the little kid is me starts getting excited. Iiiiii'm Baaaaack!
Mileage:610
Moving Time: 8:41
Moving Average: 70
Stopped 22:43
Overall Avg:67
Total time 9:04
Port Orleans, Riverside
I am at Port Orleans by 3:45 (Eastern). It's 80 degrees. My trip odometer sez I've gone 1192.6 miles. I go to registration, and am taken immediately. No lines.For some reason, I didn't do express check-in. Don't know why, it just didn't enter my mind. I done in 5 minutes anyway. Express check-in is highly overrated. :-)
I have a preferred room, and I'm in building 15, which is very close to the busses and main complex. Last time I was here, I was in building 35, on the far side of the resort. You worked off breakfast just going to the food court and back to the room.
I'm up on the second floor in room 1544, a distance from any stairway, and there is no guest elevator here. sigh.
I find the room, take pictures before give the room that lived in look, and unpack the car. I down a can of diet coke, and decide to go take pictures of the resort. It's 5pm, and I don't have the motivation to go into a park. The flat of yesterday put me 4 hours behind, and I was never able to make up the time. (And trust me, I used to TSD rally, I know about trying to make up time. :-))
The toilet seat won't stay up. Fine for females, a pain for guys. sigh. I will eventually use some electrical tape to hold the seat up. Yes, I have some electrical tape. Doesn't everyone? (I once used a band-aid. I don't remember which resort...) Don't they test these things before installing them?
Port Orleans Riverside, Room 1544
The building next to me (building 14) is under rehab, and is empty. The rooms are gutted, work needed and completion time tables are on all the windows. Maybe they'll get toilet seats that work right. Part of the parking lot is closed for staging, but if there's no one in Building 14, then there's no cars that'll park there either, right? Wrong.
I take the long way around to the Sassagoula Steamboat Co, the name for the main complex of registration, food venues and gift shop. I have the evening sunset light, and use it while I can. I go inside take pics of registration, and other areas. I pick up a burger to eat, and leave, only to find it's dark outside. I took the long way here, so I'm not sure how to get back to the room. I walk to the bus stops, and the path is between the two bus areas, and it gets me back to the room, but there has to be a shorter path. Tomorrow....
Port Orleans Riverside, Exteriors
End December 2011 Trip Report - Part 2.
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