Hopelessly Stuck in Ohio

After spending the past few days with relatives in Ohio, we were looking forward to our return home. At least, I was. And not a moment too soon. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t enjoy visiting everybody; it’s just that after a couple days I begin to miss my own place.

So imagine my distress when 2 ½ hours into our trip I noticed that my vehicle wasn’t driving quite right. My husband noticed at the same time because he mistakenly thought that I had forgotten how to drive and suggested that I ease my lead foot off the gas so the gears would shift easier. Frustrated, I decided I’d show him, and I pulled over so he could drive. Ha! Take that!

OK, well, that’s not exactly how it happened, the end part that is…I actually pulled over so someone in our party could pee….and to fill up the gas tank. Nevertheless, I did suspect that something was wrong. My husband checked under the hood, pumped the gas and away we went. This time with him at the helm. And then… it happened. The vehicle began making a terrible noise and wouldn’t shift.

It had become crystal clear that we would not reach Alabama without some intervention. So we found a Wal-mart and my husband spent the next two hours freezing to death under the car, changing the transmission fluid in hopes that we could make it home.

So we tried again. And just when I thought it was safe to declare that everything was better, the noise was back and not soon after the vehicle started losing speed and wouldn’t shift. We all knew we wouldn’t make it to Alabama so we headed back in the same direction that we’d come from hoping to make it back to my mother-in-laws without the help of a tow vehicle.

And several hours later, we did. We had driven all day and hadn’t even escaped Ohio. And it seems as though we returned just in time for a snow storm. It appears that soon we will be stuck…in more ways than one.