Bumps in the Road...

Boy, what a day!

Nats had to go in at 7am for a store meeting, lasted an hour. On the way home, a dumptruck deposited a HUGE rock in the middle of the road-and yep, you guessed it-BAM! instant FLAT. It was on a busy highway, no time to swerve and miss it without taking life into one's own hands...so she called, upset-my first thought was OGOD what happened!!!

We hurried up and got over to where she was, arrived 15-20 minutes later-a local police officer had spotted her and had stopped to assist. She said one truck driver saw it happen and stopped to see if she needed help. He even asked if she had a spare, but she didn't know about her donut under the trunk panel and told him , "no?" DOH! So anyway, the officer is there when we arrived, and Nats is shaking like a leaf, nerves shot.

After taking down Nats' information, the officer followed us to gas station 100 yards away,  so we could get safely off the highway and not get killed by passing motorists. Then Harry, the gas station owner, saw us and came running out to help Mike remove the flat and put on the donut...what a guy!

Thankfully, Pete's Tires is another 1/8th mile down the road so Mike and Nats followed me as I hobbled her car over to the Tire place. She was needing new tires this spring anyway, so we had them replace both fronts, they said the 2 backs were still in great shape-no sense hitting her for more bucks at this point...

After installing both tires, they test-dragged her car around the shop a couple times and found out one of the struts didn't have a strut mount in place, bumpitybumpitybumpbumpbump when it hit a bump...no biggie, they said they can fix it later for $189. It's not a major part, just an annoyance and Nats said she actually got used to it, chalked it up as an Older Car thing~

Later when we got home, I got on the phone and called the company.  I got routed to the person in charge, left a very polite if not slightly urgent message on his Voice Mail stating that I was going to be needing to speak with him regarding a "road incident with a dump truck, a rock and a cop..."and would he please return my call as soon as possible.

Then I had Nats go back and get the tire back from Pete's, and she also got a picture of the rock while she was out. The thing must have weighted 60 lbs, the truck driver who stopped had moved it off to the side of the road so nobody else would hit it. Coincidentally, he was hauling a load of rock identical to the one found in the road. He wasn't the driver of the truck in question, but as we were fixing her tire, we watched a similar truck pass the gas station heading north to the Rock company where they dump their loads for grinding. They have been traveling up and down the highway for days, we'll never know which truck lost it's rocks, but we can only surmise it was from the same company. That huge rock didn't fall from the sky....

The front passenger tire was shredded and the hub cap was broken in two. I called the local Junk yard and they might have 4 Cavalier wheel covers that she can use. We're waiting to hear back.

Oyes, I will be contacting the Rock company again tomorrow. I have a shredded tire and pictures.

Despite it all, Nats still loves her cute little zoom car! It's worth it.