Jeanne and Janet were to meet us at the hotel at 10 a.m.---a little later than originally planned as I had to take care of some business with mom. About 9:45, Jeanne called me to say that Janet forgot her tool bag, so they were headed back to her house to retrieve it---a good 45 minutes away from the hotel. They offered to let us go on ahead of them---and in hindsight, that would have been the better plan. Anyway, they got to us about 11:15 or so. We're off!
Our first stop was a little antique shop that Pam and I had visited last year. We each made a purchase, but Nancy got the "prize"! She snagged a brown cart for her scrapbook room. Of course we knew that we couldn't get it home, so we put it in Janet's (Ron's) suburban for me to get the next time I'm in town.
Then it was lunch time. We stopped at Cadillac Bill's---the fabulous burger drive-in that we went to last year---hand-patted burgers. After lunch, we were on our way---until Janet tried to start the suburban---no go. Jeanne, Janet and I were trying to open the hood. Unbeknownst to us, 3 men were watching and laughing that we couldn't figure it out. Just as they were coming to our rescue, I got it open. They took it from there and determined that Janet did not have a dead battery. One of the guys crawled under the car with a hammer, banged something and got it started. They recommended that we take the care a block down the road to a garage. Janet drove it down the street. As she parked it and started to get out, Jeanne told her it was still rolling. Janet slammed it into park---and the whole steering column broke--flopping around. I didn't even know that could happen. Pam said "oooh, that's going to cost a lot!"
To try to make a long story short, Janet took my advice and had it towed back to St. Louis for Ronnie to deal with. She rented a car---asked for the largest they had---the delivered a tiny KIA. We removed all the antiques I bought and put them in the suburban while packing in everything scrapbook related. We know where our priorities are.
Janet and Jeanne had to take the rental guy 25 miles back to Troy, MO. Pam, Nancy and I went on at that point. As it turned out, Jeanne and Janet were only about an hour behind us.
All was well and we had a great weekend.
Now it's time to leave on Sunday. We decided to get an early start---7:30 a.m.---so we could go to a Super Bowl party. Pam was riding co-pilot. She mis-read the directions---we were supposed to turn on Hwy. 61 and go 75 miles. She thought we had to go 75 miles to get to 61. When I saw a sign for St. Joseph, I knew something was wrong. I handed Nancy the Atlas. She determined we had gone waaaayyyy wrong. Sooo, we turned around. We had to go 45 miles back to Macon, MO. Then we had another 65 miles to reach Hwy. 70. When Nancy said we'd be entering 70 at Columbia, I said, "OMG! That's 2 hours out of St. Louis!"
The funniest thing---Jeanne and Janet slept "in" and had the big breakfast buffet before leaving and they beat us back to St. Louis! I called her when we reach Hwy 70 and they were there too--except 2 hours further down the road from us.
We didn't get home until 5:30---10 hours on the road---should have been 7. We logged 635 miles on my car---I figured we went 250 miles out of our way. The only good thing about it was being with girlfriends made the time go by fast. Had I been with Butch, the trip would have been in stony silence which then would have made the trip seem like 3 days. Of course, if I had been with Butch, it wouldn't have happened. Pam and I have never had any trouble before, so we're blaming Nancy for the distraction. I guess my next car will have a GPS.
You're right - sometimes I don't get your gist....I had to look up "travails" because I never heard of it!
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