When the road fights back..

We had another travel weekend..it can really be summed up in a few photos.


But you say..WAIT...there is something amiss in these photos. There is no beer, there are no chicken wings..How could Trina be away from a big screen TV on the opening day of the NFL season? Tradition says..opening day is celebrated with Legend's beer, homemade chicken wings, friends and long hours sitting squarely in front of the TV.
OH..but this year..had to be different. Our good friend Mike and Kim got married on Sunday in Leesburg, VA..so we drove up to Kristen and Gyeong's for Saturday night which is about halfway.
Gyeong fixed a great dinner
And we brought our Wii so we did a lot of that too..

Where does one Brindle (Cali) end and the other (Beamer) begin??
Aren't they cute...
Then on Sunday, Jason and I got up and headed north to Leesburg..no wings and beer..but oh well. We did stop at The Winery at La Grange on the way up..really good.
The wedding was beautiful. And we got to hang out with Jenni and Paul. (they are due in 6 months and that is sparkling cidar in her flute)We dress up occasionally..So..now the first two photos are explained. How curious are you about the cop cars that truely defined our weekend. We left the reception around 7:30 and headed to Kristen's to pick up the dogs. At around 8:10 we went through a construction area of Route 15. We felt a huge bump, a loud pop and our night changed. ;-) We had a flat tire..due to some type of crevice in the road. As we hobble to a point where we can stop, we notice many cars on the side of the road. So we pull off..and Jason..in his suit..gets to the dirty work while I phone the state police and Kristen.

Now..to say we were pissed..is an understatement. VDOT's ears were ringing! So after putting the donut on my car (remember..I have an all wheel drive car..donuts are NOT good for them)..we drove back to the scene of the crime to photograph it and see if we could find others. It wasn't hard. There were quite a few cars on the side of the road, people with flash lights..and one man with TWO popped tires. This is my tire..And this is the crevice that wasn't filled (you can see the 'squished' asphalt on the bottom edge.). While I was taking this photo (at 10PM at night in the dark)..a car went over it and I saw it pop..saw the air blow out and watched it hobble away.It was just a perfect scenario for tire popping..bottom of a hill, poorly filled..left hand side of the road. The police finally arrived (FOUR of them) along with the construction company representative, VDOT and lots of construction equipment..at 11PM at night. And we had quite the gathering of affected people and cars on the side of the road as well..they became a new friends.We did this for 3 hours..waiting for a number/name so that we would have our damage paid for by the responsible party. We saw 15 cars get flat tires (some two)..and we missed some I feel sure. We finally got everyone business card, the names to call ..and off we went (albeit at 50mph). We finally got to Kristen's at 11:45PM and knew we would be unable to complete our jouney home safely on a spare tire...Interstates don't appreciate 50mph and it would have abeen an additional 1 1 /2 hours on the spare. So we stayed another night and got up this morning. At 8AM I called the numbers I had been given, and surprisingly he was expecting my call (he knew me by the Subaru driver)! He had a busy morning too. They are reimbursing us. So then..off to find a new tire..driving to the closest place that had it and getting a new tire. The tire person told us we had a 'impact crack' on the back tire and a scratch on the back rim as well. So the company knows they may be buying me a 2nd tire in a few weeks. But we were obviously ultra close to having TWO flat tires..which would have made a bad evening..much much worse.

After getting a new tire, driving back to Kristen's to get the dogs, we finally made it home at noon on Monday...12 hours later than anticipated. I did see that Dallas won..and I hear it was a great game.