We had a "boys in one car, girls in the other" deal and it was fine with everyone involved. We had the backseat of the Malibu completely loaded with some room for Shelby's (Taylor's Russian Tortoise) traveling box. That tortoise walked in that box during all of the light hours and walked even faster when we had the music on.
We only made it to Sacramento. The trailer was a used trailer and apparently we had a little heavier load than we should. We were told the tires were overinflated as well, which also contributed to the excessive wearing on the inside of the tires. Darrinn was worried that we would have a blowout if we went much farther. As you can imagine, all the tire stores are closed at 8pm on a Saturday...and most of them closed on Sundays.... what to do?!
We used the navigation to search for Super Walmarts (because they all have tire centers, did you know all Walmarts don't have tires???) The tire centers closed at 8 but did open the next morning at 7am. Woo hoo. So, we set the navigation to the closest Super Walmart... in Dixon California, exactly 18 miles west of Sacramento. I was totally bummed to be honest with you, I had a few more hours of driving in me and was hoping to put more miles behind us. The kids were happy to get out of the car though.
We found a hotel a couple miles from Super Walmart and crashed. 2 Queen size beds and a rollaway bed! Manuel Boys on one bed, Manuel girls on the other and Drudles got the rollaway. He felt like he was the king of the room with his own bed in the middle of the room. We awoke to an amazing sunrise the next morning. I'll post the pictures once I find the cord to download my pictures.
Welllll...Darrinn ran to Walmart at 7am only to return by 8am. It would seem that Walmart does sell tires, but not the size tires that go on a trailer. Another problem, the man at Walmart said that we would have to unload the trailer before they could jack it up and put the new tires on anyway. I was worried about that... Darrinn said the guy was really non friendly about the whole thing. Oh goody!
Would you believe there was a tractor supply store across the street from Walmart? It didn't open until 9am. We packed up all our stuff and got ready. I wanted to go get the cars gassed up and breakfast in our tummies by 9am so we could do whatever we had to do and get back on the road.
They had the tires we needed! Darrinn bought them and we headed back to Walmart, cuz the tractor store doesnt have the stuff to do anything with them. But the important thing was that we had them. The same friendly guy came out with that "oh geez, he's back" look on his face. Darrinn actually had to go inside and BUY a lug wrench. The Walmart man allowed him to use the floor jack and the jack stands.
Yes, Darrinn jacked up the trailer all by himself. Yes, with all of the stuff loaded on it. He pulled the tires off and the Walmart man took them in so he could take off the old tires and mount the new tires. It took them at least an hour. They came back in to tell Darrinn they couldn't seat the tires. I don't know what that means, but something about not getting them to seal on the rims. Darrinn actually had to tell them how to do it. And then Darrinn actually had to get one of HIS ratchet straps to let them use so they could do it. I know what you're thinking... are you serious? Oh it gets better. As Darrinn was going to get the ratchet strap the guy started telling Darrinn how he was just telling the other guys how to use the ratchet strap to fix it. HE WAS ACTUALLY NOW TRYING TO CLAIM IT WAS HIS IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Anyway, the guys were done, Darrinn put the new tires back on away we went. Finally. It was like almost noon if I remember correctly. We drove and drove and drove. Quite uneventful day as far as I can remember. The sunset was equally as amazing as the sunrise that day. Again.. as soon as I find the camera cord.
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