We're All Just Travelers On The Road To Kingdom Come.

Jean and I left Long Key Saturday morning at 2:45am, and within 5 minutes were in a line of five cars following a construction truck (they work on the roads at night), with blinking yellow lights, moving along US-1 at 35 mph. Got on the Florida Turnpike at 4:00am and ten minutes later the low air warning light came on showing but 26 lbs. of air in the right rear tire. Car has neither jack nor spare, and the can of "Fix a Flat" was in the storage compartment buried under a loaded freezer. Found an open Convenience store/gas station with an air pump and for $3.00 put 40 lbs. of air in the tire. Back on the turnpike, we drove for two hours and watched the tire pressure slowly drop to 32 lbs. Stopped at Ft. Pierce where there are several gas stations and two truck stops, none of which were open for service. Bought a can of "Fix A Flat" but was unable to get more than about 10 seconds worth of the stuff into the tire before it stopped working. Spent an additional $2.50 for another shot of air, this time getting the tire up to 41 lbs. and headed north. To our utter amazement the tire stopped leaking.

We made it out of Florida by 9:30 on I-95 which is three to five lanes wide and had almost no traffic. I-95 in Georgia is three lanes wide and is usually no trouble traffic wise. Had smooth sailing for the first 90 miles but things came to a halt due to what turned out to be a series of relatively minor accidents in both Georgia and South Carolina. We sat or crept along for almost two hours getting by two of the accidents. Waze routed us around the third one with a series of eight bewildering turns covering about 15 miles of back roads that gave us a unique view of life in rural South Carolina. Very interesting.

With Waze reporting numerous accidents, congestion, stand stills and delays on I-95 all the way up to Fredericksburg, Jean and I decided to abort the planned route and turned west on I-26, took I-77 past Charlotte up to I-81, arriving at our motel in Winchester at 9:30, two hours behind schedule and just 15 minutes short of 19 hours from the time of our departure.

The 5 hour trip home in the morning featured temperatures that went from a high of 69 to a low of 47, had fog dense enough to require flashers, rain, not quite hard enough to clean off the car, and a beautiful double rainbow.  Arrived home at 12:05 pm on Easter Sunday with the right rear tire still proudly holding all of its air.