Adding to my TO DO list

WOW!  What a CRAZY couple of days!  Monday morning my son, Matt, left to go back to college which is 8 hours away (Montana Tech).  Almost halfway through his trip he stopped for fuel and discovered his transmission was leaking oil...YIKES!  After several phone calls and much deliberation, Duane and I determined the best thing to do would be to take a car trailer to him with MY car loaded on it and give him my car and take his truck back home so Duane could fix it (he's handy like that :).  First Duane and Chuck (owner of said truck/trailer) had to rewire the trailer lights/brakes (they had recently been damanged).  This took 2 hours in the dark (and cold)...oh and did I mention Duane had been diagnosed with bronchitis and walking pneumonia JUST that morning?  (Add "take Chuck and his wife out to dinner for allowing us to use the trailer"..Thank God for good friends!)  FINALLY, we headed out.  Poor Matt had been waiting in his truck and taking short walks to stay within sight of his truck for the past 6 hours (he had his fishing poles, guns and other valuables loaded in the back so couldn't just abandon it).  So...I called ahead and found a hotel that would allow me to pay with my card online and him to check in on our behalf.  That done, I instructed Matt to lock all valuables in the cab of his truck and take a taxi to the hotel and call me when he was checked in.  He did and immediately call me with the question "how many stars is this place Mom?"...to which I answered that I wasn't expecting much for what we paid..."well, the tv is as wide as it is deep!"....sorry to disappoint. (Add "Educate Matt on when to pay for hotel with stars!")

On the way to Post Falls, Duane and I encountered an interesting convoy (acutally 2 of them) consisting of at least 5 police cars with lights flashing, an additional 6-8 passenger cars with their flashers on and 2 semis (one in front and one in back) indicating "WIDE LOAD, DO NOT PASS".  We couldn't see exactly what the load was but it was indeed "wide" taking up both lanes of the interestate.  Luckily they  pulled onto an exit overpass and let the traffic pass after about 10 miles of passing them at 35 mph. I attempted to take a pic of what it was they were hauling but this is all I got.  (But one has to wonder why it would require police escort at the front and end of it??)

We finally arrived at Post Falls around midnight and had Matt go with us to unload my car and load up his truck (in order to avoid dealing with traffic the next day).  The WORST part of that was unloading my car which resulted in it rubbing the front fender..OUCH!  The process went fairly smooth EXCEPT the atrocious smell of burning brakes when we got out (maybe that's what the jerking every time we had to brake was!).  So Duane added "rewire trailer brakes/lights" to the list for the following morning...could it get any better??

We slept quite well despite the lack of stars on the hotel sign (insert smiley face), of course that may have also been due to complete exhaustion and the help of drugs on Duane's part (Pick Up Prescriptions was crossed OFF my TO DO list before we left!).  So the next morning we slept in and missed the hotel-provided breakfast so we grabbed a bite at Zip's (a common stopping place for us when we're driving to Montana AND the place where the whole fiasco began...Matt noticing oil leaking from transmission that is)...and we were full circle!  The boys then proceeded to rewire the trailer lights/brakes after Duane instructed me on how to appropriately stand at the back of the trailer and holler when the lights were effectively working (apparently he was unimpressed with my commitment to "Words with Friends" while he and Matt ran back and forth to check lights!).  So with Matt behind the wheel of my NEW car and his truck loaded onto the trailer, we said our goodbyes once again...and headed out.  Add "Fix Transmission" to the list!