So there we were. Stranded in the middle of Virginia with a truly busted transmission. I am so very grateful Sam was there!
The little rest stop had a building filled with dirty bathrooms, a "sand box" for pets to use, a couple of loopy paths for walking on and a grassy area with a couple of picnic tables. And it had swarms of biting flies. They loved poor Sarah.
Sam called my Dad, who went to the transmission place here to hash everything out with the people who "serviced" our transmission prior to this whole trip. He gave us the name and address of a shop about 50 miles away from us in Alexandria where he asked us to take it so they could fix it (on his tab).
So we called AAA, again. And we waited for a truck, again. Sadly, the truck was not large enough to hold us all, so we also called Enterprise (AAA gave us a lovely discount) and they came and picked us up. Really! Just like their ads say they do. Chris, the Enterprise salesman, picked up the kids and I and brought us to his office and Sam went with the van in the tow truck. I rented a little Passat, because it was the cheapest car on the lot that would fit our three car seats across the back, and we drove up to Alexandria to find Sam.
It was after 5:00 by this time, so we grabbed some things from the van that we knew we'd need overnight, got a room, some dinner and ended our Monday in one of the worst hotels I've ever seen. Not that I've been in a lot of hotels, but it was awful. The first room they sent us to had issues, so they sent us to another room, which had different issues. Too tired to deal with it all, we just stayed there, on little lumpy beds that made weird crinkly noises whenever someone moved, with very thin walls through which we listened to the neighbors breathing and snoring all night and on top of all that, the phone started ringing at 11:30 at night for no apparent reason.
Things looked better after some sleep though. The following morning, at their complimentary breakfast, the sweet lady who was overseeing the breakfast bar fell in love with our kids and made us a bunch of waffles. She kept bringing stuff over to the table and playing little games with them. She was so very sweet. And, when Sam let the front desk know about our issues the previous night, the manager didn't even hesitate a moment: She refunded more than half the price of the room.
We didn't know what was going on with the van that day. We sort of assumed that the folks at the shop would be taking the transmission apart and letting us know what was wrong with it and probably fixing it that day or at least the next. So we waited.
We decided that, since we were so close, we'd go visit the Smithsonian with the kids. That turned out to be one of the best choices we made! We did a lot of walking that day, but we had such a lovely time, stopping here for pretzels, there for ice cream, and we even took a few minutes to enjoy a carousel ride!
We chose to go to the Air and Space Museum, where Katie and Josie were thrilled with the "rocket ships" and Sarah was in heaven with all those airplanes.
They had a McDonald's there (oddly enough) and we made a late lunch of their cheese burgers. The kids each got a surprisingly well made rocket ship toy with their meal that is still thrilling them.
Just after we finished eating, we found out that they had taken the transmission apart and they had a long and inflated list of things wrong with it. After many phone calls to all involved, we realized there was no way we could wait in Virginia for this to be finished. Sam had appointments the following day that just couldn't be pushed back any further.
So, in a mad rush to beat the clock before the rental place closed and the repair shop closed, we returned our rental car and got a rental SUV, grabbed all of our stuff out of the van that couldn't be left behind, and we hit the road for NJ.
Now, because we had been walking so much, and this whole ordeal had been rather stressful on all of us, the kids fell asleep in the first rental car pretty much as soon as we got into it. They all slept clear through until we had to switch cars, at which time Katie and Josie woke up and had plenty of time to acquaint themselves with the new rental. Sarah, on the other hand, would not wake up. In fact, she stubbornly refused to allow me to disturb her slumber. So, I unbelted her seat, leaving her safely belted in it, and rebelted it into the new car. I highly recommend that, if you are ever in a similar situation, you do not ever do this to your child. She was very angry with me when she woke up. Nothing was the same as when she had fallen asleep and it took her about an hour to begin to move past this betrayal.
So, unsure of the fate of our van, but eager to finally get home, we grabbed some incredibly delicious chicken tenders from a local place (I have no idea how they do it, but these things were super crispy on the outside, and amazingly and deliciously juicy on the inside) and we ate dinner on the road.
We finally . . . finally arrived home just before one in the morning on Wednesday. We unpacked what we needed, got everyone tucked in bed, after a great deal of exploring was done in our new kitchen, and waiting for a feeling of normalcy to return. It didn't, though, because there was still too much to think about, too many loose ends. We were home, but the trip wasn't over yet.
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