Vacation! Thursday morning, Susan and I hopped in the car and headed east. We’re headed to Florida, but decided to split one long of day of driving into… well, two long days of driving.
We’ve been waiting on the liner for our swimming pool to be delivered since March. The liner’s arrival kicks off a week’s worth of activity that culminates in the completion of the pool. Like clockwork, the liner arrived the day before our vacation began. We will have a steady stream of workers finishing up the pool while we are away. Between that, the electrician running the connections for the pump, my dad letting people in and out of the building, my mother-in-law taking care of the cats, and our house sitter popping in and out, there will be more people at the house then when we are home. So that’s good.
Things were smooth sailing until we hit West Memphis, Arkansas. Due to a discovered crack, the I-40 bridge to Memphis has been closed. The alternate routes to cross the river into Memphis are not good. It took us over an hour and a half to travel roughly 10 miles through West Memphis. Most of that time was spent sandwiched between UPS, FedEx, and other delivery trucks. With us on one side of the river and our hotel on the other side, all we could do was wait. Susan had never heard of the West Memphis Three and so while we were delayed I pulled up a podcast about the case and we listened to it. We really are living in the Matrix. It still amazes me that we can just pick up our phones and type “tell me about this subject” and get not just articles but podcasts and videos about virtually any topic.
After finally checking into our hotel we walked down to the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium with the kids for dinner. After a brief walk down Beale street we returned to the hotel.
This morning, the valet pulled our car around and informed us that someone had slashed our tire while it was sitting in their parking garage. “Park at your own risk.” We called AAA and they sent a tow truck. The tow truck arrived and said he couldn’t tow the car because the flat was on the rear, and it’s a front wheel drive vehicle. Now we are waiting for a flatbed truck to arrive. The tire shop said they can’t get a tire in until 1-2pm, so we’re in no rush to get over there. Worst comes to worst, we’ll walk back down to Beale street for a tasty BBQ lunch.
