on the bright side?

I had my first taste of repair to my "new" car yesterday. My sweet little cherry darling just turned 2...and yes I do name my cars, doesn't everyone? I don't drive much and tend to be good about the basic maintenance so having my tire blow out while running into town early yesterday evening pretty much sucked. I heard that my car sounded odd, then the feel of it changed quickly. I got into the slow lane and cruised onto the shoulder. In doing so I attempted to pull off as far as I could as I was pretty sure it was my front driver's side tire...and hey what do you know I was right! I called my dad as to be honest it was not a place I wanted to try and change a tire at, though I can do that chore.

My dad said he would be there shortly so I sat back and tried to relax. I will say that in all my times of breaking down (and there have been a few over the years) I have never had a CHP stop. I can no longer say that...he did stop at least. The guy asked me if I had help coming & said he would check back on his next loop. I thought about trying to pull further forward to the exit which wasn't too far ahead, but I didn't want to screw with my rim.

This ended up being a good call!

So, my pop comes and after a bit of searching we find all we need to get that dead tire off. Turns out my fancy new baby has a wheel lock on her tires so that they can't be stolen. Who knew there was such things...when you own old piece of crap cars you don't have that. My dad had parked his car a bit further out, but traffic was still ugly close. All of those valley folk pulling their rigs of camping & dune toys came very close to us.

The thing that bugged me is here is a car on the side of the road, getting a tire changed on the side where traffic is. You can see the flashers and are in the slow lane with no one in the fast lane, but do you move over...oh no you don't. Heaven forbid you think of others...crazy talk!

And to the ones who did move, thanks : )

The car comes with one of those small spares, so I drove back home quite slowly & carefully. This am my pops came back and took my tire and rim into town, paid for 2 new ones, brought one out to the house & installed it. Then drove the car into town to get the other tire. When all was said and done it cost me a mere $100 and 3 hours of my dad's time. No charge for labor or time...love that. Bless my savings for having enough in it to cover this.

And that is the bright side...pop could and did help, had the money and a day free to take care of it. Plus now having 2 fresh new tires on my car it can go for miles and miles...LOL