a ladder (or giant fork) in the road
FYI - Written by our former blog member, Marnie
This past weekend we drove our touring wagon (1998 BMW 540i Touring) to Big Bear Lake in the High Sierra. I will not mention the traffic. I can’t go there. Suffice it to say we had to take turns driving to save our minds from the rage of the road -- it’s only a “2 hour drive.” My turn began on the 15 (here in SoCal we put the word “the” in front of all things with highway numbers) after a trip through the drive through at In-n-Out. As I was trying to exit for the 10E (careening across four lanes of traffic), I see out of the corner of my eye my husband gesticulating madly, mouth full of hamburger, animal style (both the burger and his grunting). I calmly assumed, as usual, that he was trying to remind me to exit (Hello! I’m already going there!), so I focused on the exit and screaming at him, “I’m getting over, for fuck’s sake!” As I’m yelling, I see a glimmer of metal to the left and then feel a shocking bump on the left front tire. The husband finishes his burger just at that moment, yelling, a little late, “Watch out for that ladder!” (As I’m thinking back on this adventure, was it really a ladder? Do we know?)
Well. The tire did not blow. The car did not spin wildly out of control. We did not die or even knock over the french fries. And I didn’t even hit it with my back wheel. As we were exiting, I checked the balance (taking hands off of wheel to see if the car had a mind of its own), which was fine, so we kept driving (yeah, yeah, bad idea). About 10 minutes later, the car makes an usual sound as it hits a small lane marker. Doesn’t sound good. We pull over (Rancho Cucamonga!) and sure enough, flat tire. The rim, luckily, is fine. We are, luckily, fine. Praise be to BMW traction control, the full size spare tire (with beautiful matching new sport rim), clean, lovely tools and a husband who once he instructed wife and toddler to “Take a walk, please,” can change a tire with the best of them. We were back on the road in 20 minutes. I was not driving.
Re my last entry, there was an article in this weekend's Wall Street Journal on personal jets. OK, so it’s not a viable solution any time soon. We figured out it would cost my family (three humans, one dog) about $8,500 to fly to Denver and back. We could drive the distance in two days for about $300 each way in our less gas guzzling car. Commercial jets: $300 each plus dog sitter, $100. I’ll just wait until it becomes more reasonable and hope that other airlines catch on to Richard Branson’s idea of towing jets to runways to save on fuel will be adopted by other airlines. Love that guy.
This past weekend we drove our touring wagon (1998 BMW 540i Touring) to Big Bear Lake in the High Sierra. I will not mention the traffic. I can’t go there. Suffice it to say we had to take turns driving to save our minds from the rage of the road -- it’s only a “2 hour drive.” My turn began on the 15 (here in SoCal we put the word “the” in front of all things with highway numbers) after a trip through the drive through at In-n-Out. As I was trying to exit for the 10E (careening across four lanes of traffic), I see out of the corner of my eye my husband gesticulating madly, mouth full of hamburger, animal style (both the burger and his grunting). I calmly assumed, as usual, that he was trying to remind me to exit (Hello! I’m already going there!), so I focused on the exit and screaming at him, “I’m getting over, for fuck’s sake!” As I’m yelling, I see a glimmer of metal to the left and then feel a shocking bump on the left front tire. The husband finishes his burger just at that moment, yelling, a little late, “Watch out for that ladder!” (As I’m thinking back on this adventure, was it really a ladder? Do we know?)
Well. The tire did not blow. The car did not spin wildly out of control. We did not die or even knock over the french fries. And I didn’t even hit it with my back wheel. As we were exiting, I checked the balance (taking hands off of wheel to see if the car had a mind of its own), which was fine, so we kept driving (yeah, yeah, bad idea). About 10 minutes later, the car makes an usual sound as it hits a small lane marker. Doesn’t sound good. We pull over (Rancho Cucamonga!) and sure enough, flat tire. The rim, luckily, is fine. We are, luckily, fine. Praise be to BMW traction control, the full size spare tire (with beautiful matching new sport rim), clean, lovely tools and a husband who once he instructed wife and toddler to “Take a walk, please,” can change a tire with the best of them. We were back on the road in 20 minutes. I was not driving.
Re my last entry, there was an article in this weekend's Wall Street Journal on personal jets. OK, so it’s not a viable solution any time soon. We figured out it would cost my family (three humans, one dog) about $8,500 to fly to Denver and back. We could drive the distance in two days for about $300 each way in our less gas guzzling car. Commercial jets: $300 each plus dog sitter, $100. I’ll just wait until it becomes more reasonable and hope that other airlines catch on to Richard Branson’s idea of towing jets to runways to save on fuel will be adopted by other airlines. Love that guy.
posted by David at Wednesday, October 04, 2006
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