[i]
Waking up just before 10 a.m. James puts on a few waking up songs on his phone.
We walk on over to Gillie's to make it just in time for breakfast. French Toast on a French Baguette with an Egg and Coffee. It's Ana's birthday. Becca got a box of candles, the goal being to light up a candle on anything Ana eats today. I poke one into her buckwheat pancakes, light it up, and we all sing.
After that a stop into Gobble Cakes, a cupcake bakery. Ana has an unrelenting taste and love for sweets. And it's common for her to become indecisive when faced with too many appealing options.
Will is planned to come to school here sometime in the near future so we take a brief car trip around VA Tech campus as Becca and Devon identify the buildings made of Hokey stones.
Then to a cozy thrift store with cheap price tags.
Then, stopping at Lucie Monroe, the coffee shop Tim manages. It's a spacious artsy café with custom painted ceiling tiles. I can feel a heavy drain to my system – I can't determine whether it's a caffeine crash, marijuana hangover, or general lack of good sleep. Either way, I've lost my energy for this trip.
Chill guy time at the cathouse while Becca trims Ana's bangs at the salon nearby. Sipping on Pineapple Green Tea and eating some Black Beans. We all have our respective gadgets, whether it be laptops, a Nintendo DS, or an iPad, and we're quieter than the cats.
After an hour or so the girls return. We say our farewells and we hit the road...
Snacking on Granola Bars.
James takes the wheel and gets us through 81 and most of 64. We notice a gradual rattling sound coming from the front of the car and it makes the car wobble ever so slightly. By the time we stop at a Wawa the problem has become more noticeable. Even after checking underneath the car and around the tires there's nothing to be found. It doesn't seem to be an engine or transmission issue but the sound is still there. I take the wheel and try to maintain a safe distance and speed as the sound gets progressively worse. I have the hazard lights blinking just to forewarn the nearby drivers. A cop pulls us over to check that everything is good. I lie and say that we're just driving carefully and slowly because of the weight in the car. If I told him something was wrong then we would have made us wait for a tow, and that would've been very expensive considering we're still about two hours out. Pressing on.
"It'll be a miracle if we make it home." I announce to everyone.
And just as we're entering the interchange ramp to I-264 the car calls it quits. Will and I discover now with the lights on our phones that the lug nuts on the passenger side wheel have fallen out and the car is propped up on the tire. I rotated my tires over a month ago so maybe I didn't tighten the nuts enough and over time with the centrifugal force and heat from the long trip they just came loose. It slowly comes to me that this whole situation could have been avoided if I had checked the lug nuts before we left. Now I know. Jes, our savior, comes to grab Will and James to give them a ride back to their cars. I call my insurance and have the car towed at no cost cause it's only 15 miles away from the shop. It starts to rain as we wait patiently. Getting a car towed is such an ordeal and takes much time. It was midnight when we broke down. Two hours later Ana and I finally make it home safely. It's not a complete road trip without some kind of car trouble.
Unpacking and settling in for sleep at 3:30 a.m.
[i] Images by me.
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