The vacation had in all honesty been pretty typical, or as typical as it could be with three children ages seven and under. We were headed toward Jacksonville, Florida, from Gordonsville, Virginia, when my husband had his “brilliant” idea.
“Hey, let’s go through Washington!”
Why not?
Ugh, why not indeed. We did fine getting into Washington, but getting out was an entirely different matter. Apparently, everyone in their right mind decides to desert the city on the weekend to head to the beach. So, with approximately ten billiion other people, we headed South on I-95, into Virginia.
The traffic was horrendous, two or three hours of stop-and-go and “I gotta go potty!” and “Are we there yet?”. And, then, the brakes began to smoke. A smell not unlike burned rubber filled our car. My seven year old, at top volume, screamed “Mom, what is that smell?!?” So we pulled off the highway and into a gas station.
Fortunately, the brakes weren’t actually on fire, yet. But, there was no way my poor old Dodge Caravan was going anywhere without seeing a doctor. We were able to get a tow after a few more hours (since we needed a tow truck with a flatbed and a back seat, apparently the AAA dispatcher didn’t believe us the first time about needing to fit five people plus the driver into the truck) to a service station, where they agreed to fix our brakes for 1300 dollars and five hours.
Our terrible three were done reading the six sad books in the waiting room in approximately ten minutes. So, we now had four hours and fifty minutes left before our car was done. It was nearly 100 degrees out, but we decided to walk them up and down the driveway of the service station.
“Moooooom, I’m hooooooooot.”
We went back in. Now there were only four hours and thirty five minutes to go.
We did eventually get the car fixed, and made it back on the road around dark. We drove South for a few hours until we hit North Carolina. We pulled the three cranky, over tired, whining children out of the car and into some flea bag motel. I have never been so glad to get out of a city. I haven’t been to D.C. since.