Could have done without that.

    The drive to West Virginia was one of the worst drives we've ever had. I mean the driving portions were okay. It was really every time we stopped that pretty much stunk. 

    First we stopped to eat in Ohio at a Wendy's. That wasn't the bad part, as I can eat the chocolate Frostys. The bad part was when I entered the camper to get my food from the fridge. Upon entering I was greeted by most of the contents of the freezer scattered all about the camper's floor. Somehow, my guess is bouncing over all the ridiculous construction every mile or so and the endless potholed roads, the freezer popped open and spilled her guts. Luckily, most of the food was okay, excepting for my ice cream which could be been slurped through a straw. I shoved it all back in and we continued happily down the road. 

    As we drove Jason asked if I had turned the fridge/freezer back on to cool things down and I replied, "no, I didn't think about that." "Well next time we stop we'll flip it back on to salvage everything that spilled out." "Sounds good."

    Flash forward to a rest area. As we were pulling in I remarked, "Geez, something stinks!" and mock gagged. Well that something was us. And it was indeed gag inducing once exiting the car. It appeared that something was "wrong" with one of the tire hubs. To be more exact, it smelled like fire and metal was resting on metal. It was also about 300 degrees when Jason used the heat gun. This was not good. It was then that I had my first of several mental breakdowns of the day owing to the fact that had we not stopped, we would have been on the news as the people from South Dakota whose camper and vehicle burned to the ground on the side of the highway. Once I picked myself up off the floor, I grabbed my phone and got to work. Jason was on the phone with Good Sam trying to get ahold of somebody to help us and I joined the efforts by calling a random place called "Red's Truck Center." 

Tire off.

    I nervously asked the delightful woman on the other end of the phone if they did towing and/or camper repair to which she assured me they certainly could. After exchanging some details she said somebody would be out to us within the half hour to check things out. 

    When the gentleman exited his truck I could tell things were not awesome by the squinched up face he was making as he looked at our tire. Still he was kind and helpful and removed the tire with some sort of apparatus that made a lot of noise. He then instructed us to follow him to their shop just down the road. 

Face squinching by our rescue hero.

    Thankfully, the shop was literally just down the road and we limped there with three working wheels on the camper. Once there, several other gentlemen came out and looked at the hub and axle with variations of the same squinched up face. At this point there was talk of a whole new axle which wouldn't be able to be fixed until three days later, completely cancelling our West Virginia stop. My anxiety got the best of me again and I turned to sobbing like a nut and researching places nearby where we could buy new campers. 

    My saving grace turned out to be my kids. They went straight to work on distracting me with funny podcasts, food, and tight bear hugs. Soon Jason came back and said that the axle was fine and the guy who rescued us off the road was able to fit on a new bearing assembly and we would be on our way. I got out and much to the man's protests, hugged him hard. I thought, "well at least we got that out of the way and we couldn't have been in a better place."

    Later, four hours behind schedule but all fixed up, we stopped to get gas. The gas station was tight from the get go, but pulling out proved to be less than stellar. A calamity of communication errors led to the left rear bumper and a little bit of the camper scraping along the concrete gas pylon, bending both out of shape. We definitely could have done without that. 

    At this point we just wanted to pull in and go to bed. Still two hours out, we were resigned to the fact that this was not a very good day. And yet, in retrospect it could have been so, so much worse. It was with that mindset that I feel asleep... thankful for things working out. And we all slept like dead horses.