Comedy of Errors

Friday we went to Atlanta because Jared had a business meeting with CNN and while he would be there a while I took the girls across the street from CNN to Centennial Olympic Park (where the bomb went off during the 1996 Olympics). The plan was to play while Jared was in his meeting, eat at The Varsity (a famous burger joint in Atlanta) for dinner and return to Nashville the same day. As the girls played in the fountain of rings and were having a ball, I noticed the sky change color. (Did I mention this is the same area that a tornado ripped through a couple of months ago?) It looked like it would sprinkle on us so I started getting the girls under an nearby metal awning. Well, what I thought would be a sprinkle or two turned out to be a torrential downpour! I was completely drenched by the time Jared saw us and “rescued” us (Jared’s interjection there). I was holding onto a wet Coco, dealing with a crying Scotlyn and Bryn and trying to make sure we didn’t get electrocuted under the awning as the lightning bolts got closer when our daddy-husband-hero reached us (he was also soaked).

Off to the The Varsity we went. Everyone else had dry clothes to change into (Jared brought a change from his business attire) except me. I was so cold I could barely eat. Jared bought me a Varsity t-shirt so I could be somewhat warmer. The day was looking up. . .

At about 8 p.m. EST as we were headed back to Nash on I-75 (right outside of Dalton, GA) we heard a really bad noise and our van started murmuring. Uh-oh! We pulled over as fast as we could even with a semi in the next lane and came to a stop safely. Jared found that we had a tire that sort-of exploded. He got about 3 lugnuts off but the rest were too tight so we called 911 for help. They sent a sherrif’s deputy who had better tools to save the day. Jared put the spare on and noticed it was a bit flat. He tried using “fix-a-flat” on it but it exploded and the straw he put in the tire let out the little air that was in the tire. Next!

We had to get a towing service to come and tow us to a nearby motel since no tire centers were open at that time. The towing guys lifted us (while we were in our van) and put us on their truck. Even though I was laughing the whole time, the girls were freaking out. Since our hazards had been on for about an hour and a half apparently our battery died and we had issues with that once we were lowered from the wrecker.

The place we were forced to stay at was in a word. . .icky. It was a roach motel. And even thought Jared would disagree and say, “it wasn’t that bad”, I have pictures to prove it (read the captions for explanations). In fact, I kept falling to sleep and waking up itching all over. I swear there were bed bugs in that blood-stained bed of mine.

You know the saying, “Tomorrow is another day”? It’s true. When we woke up in the morning, Jared super-hero-ishly got us breakfast from a nearby Wendy’s and took care of our car problems by 9 a.m. Since we were already there, we decided to check out Chattanooga’s Tennessee Aquarium which was incredible! We had a beautiful drive home and Jared even made it in time to see his hero, “Indiana Jones”, with his buddies.