Thursday was not a good day

We have owned a condo on Panama City Beach since 1994 and have made several round trips each year to the beach… 650 miles each way… since retired we have spend a number of winters down there…  All trips over all those years.. have been uneventful… except this one…

We were just going thru the city of Birmingham, AL on I-65 … 5 lanes in each direction… zipping along as usual and all of sudden a hear a LARGE THUD… I saw nothing… apparently another vehicle rolled over or kicked up something… all of a sudden warning lights are flashing on the dash.. I look in the rear view mirror and see a LARGE BLACK OBJECT behind me and again at the dash and the passenger front tires is showing 13 PSI (Normally 32 PSI).. as I head for the shoulder… luckily not much traffic between me and the shoulder..

Our car is only two years old so it still has road assistance from the manufacturer… push the SOS button on the rear view mirror…  They want to talk about sending a wrecker out to put the “donut tire” on the car… well our trunk has just a few mm of spare space – all the crap we are bringing back from the beach. and the “donut tire” is under all that “stuff”… and we are going to unload all that “stuff” on the shoulder of the interstate with 80,000 lb semi- zipping by a few feet away at 70+ MPH…  NOPE…  When we got the car I optioned for the “upgraded suspension” because of Barb’s pain and back issues to make it easier for her to travel… but.. that option can with a BIG ENGINE and  HIGH PERFORMANCE TIRES…  those tires are not a common size nor normally stocked…

It is about 1:30 and the SOS customer service had dispatched a tow truck and found a dealer that could get their hands on their right sized tires within 15 minutes… once we got the car to them.. and if we got the car to them by 3:30… we could be on our way by supper time… THE TOW TRUCK DRIVER SHOWED UP AT 4:00… and got to the dealer about 4:30… getting back on the road that day was no longer a option…

Of course it is not just the two of us… to find accommodation for, but also our little Shih Tzu… We know that La Quinta hotels accept pets and got out the IPhone out… and out on the web to find a La Quinta locally… located one..  got a room reserved.. and the dealership had a courtesy van to take us to the hotel..   Of course, we had not planned on a over night stay.. .so we have NOTHING… Our condo is our second home… so we were traveling between homes so… who needs a change of clothes, cosmetics and the like. that people take when they plan on staying at a hotel 🙁

Next day, they came back to pick us up about 11:00 and back to the dealership to get the car…  The destroying front tire requires putting new tires on both front wheels and the rear tires were getting close to needing replacement and that “optional suspension” should have the same make tires on all four… and of course ..whatever I ran over.. knock the car out of alignment…  All told nearly $1400 and we still have to have the front air damn replaced where whatever I hit… bounced off the lower front end… basically cosmetic damage… but… nothing cheap to replace…

Got home about 6:00 and when around to turn things back on.. been off since the first week of Nov …everything went fine until I powered up our TIVO system.. and  it decided to be uncooperative as did the internet/network and  the TIVO required the internet to work…   I finally got the 3 of the 4 TV working and got Barb’s computer logged back on the WiFi system and went to get mine back on line..

 

 

I push the ON BUTTON  on my computer and I GET NOTHING … the same place I was a couple of weeks ago…  I spent most of Saturday afternoon… putting my computer back together… luckily like the last time… it only affected the “C” drive which is a solid state and once i got the OS reloaded all I had to do was to reload my programs.. .all my data is on drive “D”..

Then all I had to do was deal with the 400 odd emails that was in my inbox 🙁

Our little Shih Tzu probably got shaken up the most.. she likes her “status quo” and there was nothing about this 24 hrs that had anything to do with her normal status quo.  But she has been napping all day and is quickly recovering

Filed under: General Problems