Yesterday we took a road trip to visit my Dad's twin brother and some other family in Pennsylvania. I hooked up our GPS (Magellen) and off we went into the mountains. We were driving and driving and climbing mountains, and turning onto roads that surely must not have been right. You know you are not in the right place when the road you are on does not even have a name. But, Magellen MUST know what it's doing, right? I mean, I did plug in "find fastest route". So, I trusted my magellen, over hills and valleys, twisty roads that honestly felt like we were on a roller coaster... an adventure of sorts.
Well, the adventure got a little tense when one of my indicator lights went on in the car. It was the tire pressure... great... just what a need. A tire with low pressure on a desolate, no-name road. Hmmm... couldn't pull over.. no shoulder. So, I kept driving praying that my tire would make it to some sort of gas station in some type of civilization that surely must be right around the bend.. or the next one... or the next one.
About this time, my loving husband calls from Puerto Rico -- I'm explaining the situation while driving and, as any loving husband would do, he tries to reason with me as to what I need to do (aka find a gas station). He suggests that I seek Magellen's assistance in finding the gas station.. So with one hand navigating the roads, I push some buttons and voila, a Magellen locates a gas station 10 miles away -- 10 long miles away. So, I quickly turn off the road I'm on and head off as Magellen suggests. Four miles into the 10 mile search for the gas station, we come across some men working on the road. We roll the window down and ask where the nearest gas station is. He assures me that we need to turn around and go back to the road I had turned off and make a right because the gas station is right there!? WHAT??!?!? You mean my almighty magellen steered me to a gas station 10 miles out of my way when there was one literally right where I was?!?!
So, I turned around and got back to the road... turned right.. and what do you know... a gas station/general store. I was a little leery because honestly, we hadn't seen another store/gas station/human being in many, many miles. But, Dad needed the restroom, as did little guy, and I needed to get air in the tire or have a service station check it out. Well, we found out that not only did this general store not have a restroom, but it didn't have an air hose either. So, poor Dad had to use the port-a-potty and Chris used the little potty that I have stowed in our minivan for such occasions.
Thankfully, my loving husband plans ahead for such unforeseen disasters and had a compact portable air compressor in the back of our car. If it had not been for that, I don't know what we would have done. My dad and I were able to put air in the tire which we figured would get us to our destination and then we would later deal with going to a service station.
We had a nice time with our family (once we arrived) and my loving Uncle took me to a service station that he uses so we had the screw removed from the tire for a small charge.
I'm really thankful that no one got hurt and that I was not alone when this happened. I learned that sometimes modern conveniences (Magellen's) are not all that reliable... best to keep a map, a port-a-potty, an air compressor and some snacks in the car at all times.
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