The Long, Long, Road Home

Last September, my husband and I spent a week with his family in Florida. I have never really been a fan of Florida, having grown up in the Midwest, but this was a much better experience than usual. The afternoon thunderstorms were kept to a minimum, and the temperature never got above 80. It was as close to perfect as you could imagine.

Then we started to come home. The drive from Spring Hill to Boone, NC is about 10 hours, depending on traffic. We started out at about 9 am, thinking we’d be home by evening. We stopped for a little while at a drag racing museum, then for lunch at Cracker Barrel, then continued on our way. All went according to plan, until we got about 20 miles out from Columbia, SC.

We started seeing electronic warning signs about an accident and stalled traffic. I grabbed the map and started looking for possible exits-and then it happened. Dash lights started shutting off. The radio went out. I got distracted and we went right past the best exit to use, and found ourselves in a nightmare of a traffic jam. And as soon as we stopped, so did our alternator.

We spent the next 7 hours stuck in traffic on I-77, with a car that would not start. Every time the line of traffic would inch a little more, we’d get out and push. We pushed the car about a mile and a half up the shoulder, before getting stuck behind RV’s and semi’s that stopped to wait the traffic out. We finally called a tow truck, knowing it was going to be impossible for the driver to get to us, and not knowing at all where we were going to go with it.

About midnight, the truck driver found us in the mess, got the car loaded, and we pulled out into the still-stalled traffic. According to the driver, a semi carrying a load of car batteries had wrecked, causing a nasty spill that had to be cleaned up, thus keeping traffic at a standstill. We were close to an exit that included a hotel and a Hardee’s, so that’s where he took us and unloaded the car. The hotel was a little scary, but at 2 am, what were we going to do?

After a much needed night’s sleep, we awoke to the new problem: what to do with the car? Fortunately, the scary hotel had free wireless internet, so we were able to find that there was an auto repair store about a mile up the road. My husband called, and for the first time we were in luck-they had our alternator in stock. This was good news-my husband is quite handy with car repair, and we would be able to forgo an expensive trip to an unknown mechanic. The bad news? He had no tools in the car with him.

We walked the mile to the store, picked up the alternator and about $200 worth of tools, and one of the associates took pity on us and drove us back to the hotel, instead of letting us walk with all our purchases. It took about four hours in the hotel parking lot, but my husband was able to successfully install the new alternator and get us back on the road. We got back to Boone about 36 hours after we had left Florida, and the trip cost us more than $500 in towing, tools, and hotel. I have informed my husband that the next Florida trip we take had better be in an airplane.


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