2 tires in 2 daze

yesterday started off in a normal fashion - we woke up in arlington, tx and readied ourselves for the 10 hour drive to nashville. we ate breakfast at a golden corral (eeewish), cozied up in the lead sled and started 'blues brothers.'

it wasn't until hour 7 that smith observed the huge rubber hangnail dangling off our rear driver-side tire. yipes. so we called our friendly neighborhood 'man-with-a-huge-truck-and-jack' and decided to pass the "5 to 50 minutes" (direct quote) by making this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rXun4neL6c

it was the ultimate lemons to lemonade situation.

so, we awoke this morning feeling ready for anything - we had, after all, overcome our first serious-on-the-road-van-trouble the previous day and what could possibly throw us for a curve now? we found out just south of the virginia border on I-81N, when suddenly we were driving 70mph on 3 wheels and a hub cap.

NEVER FEAR! JAMES CLEARE!

what a champ: james cleare steared our crippled sled to the shoulder without even breaking a sweat. traffic zooooomed by but he kept his cool and we got to a safe spot within moments. an hour later, a mechanic named doyle helped us put yesterday's tire back on for our very slow drive to sears. we were tempted to see 'up' in 3-D while we waited for our new tires but decided to grab a bite at garfields instead - we drew on the tablecloth because it was made of paper. very practical.

so now it's 2:30 and we're about 4 hours away from nyc. ahhh the unexpected bumps in the road....

...literally.

gotta love this east coast air,
the lead sled