We're on a Road to No Where (part 2)

Ok, where was I? That's right, we made it 50 miles outside of Seattle before our first break down and you are never gonna believe this when I tell you, but Ripleys' Believe It or Not show would have had a field day with this because, we only made it another 50 miles when we had our second break down!
It was as though the Uhaul trailer we were given could only go 50 miles before it lost all its gusto! Not at all like the lil train that said, "I think I can, I think I can!" This trailer just flat out said, "Peace out SUCKERS, I'm donskies!!"
But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. So there we are Monday morning in beautiful Kent WA. ahem... cough... cough...  (Sorry if you live in Kent WA and feel it is the most beautiful place on earth) We get the phone call that our trailer would be ready to roll by 10a.m and we set out to find where the trailer might be.  Now, we learned a thing or two from the first adventure. The first thing we learned is that it's never good to set out on a long road trip with out car chargers for those smart phones. Most generally, adequately, smart people never forget these things, but sadly the day before we had. Not this time though. Moses went and picked up a charger for our phones, and the second thing we learned is that snacks and drinks are always a must, so he got some beverages and we were on the road again. We did make one teeny, tiny mistake and that was to skip breakfast for a later stop down the road. I guess Kent WA wasn't looking too appealing in the breakfast department or something? It's fair to say then that we only learned 1 and a half things from the day before.  Learn from our mistakes, EAT PEOPLE! Eat BEFORE you set out on the road.  Yea, ok moving on...
As we are traveling down the road about 20 miles in I say, "Well, at least this time we have a charger, a snickers bar, and some beverages... not that it's going to matter because we will be just fine this time." Always the eternal optimist am I.
Did I jinx us? Well, I don't believe in jinxing, but if I did I would say I most certainly DID jinx us because only about 30 miles more down the road we get before a car comes zooming up behind us honking and waving us down to let us know our back tires were smoking.

It was at this point I may have said,
ARE YOU CUSSING KIDDING ME?!?!

CUSS!! CUSS, CUSS, CUSS!!!
I'm not admitting to anything. But there we were with another bearing on the back tire blown out, and I was like ... REMEMBER when we were JUST at UHAUL picking up our road ready, totally safe, very competent, VERY SAFE trailer? Did I mention the word safe? Oh... right ... wait...  Somebody else must have been given THAT trailer. When I was finally done cussing, (it may or may not have been about an hour later) I looked over to hear my very calm, cool, and collected husband on the phone once again with Uhaul. They said they would have someone out to us in no less than 3 hours.  Oh.. isn't that nice ONLY 3 HOURS!! (Sorry for yelling, apparently I can still get a bit worked up over this part) Someone did come to our rescue, or so I thought he was our rescuer and it was only about 2 hours later. How nice, only 2 HOURS later! I was feeling so relieved that we weren't going to be on the side of the road all day.  I was grateful it was almost all over and that he might even be able to fix us up quick like and in a hurry and we could be on our way.
Have I mentioned my eternal optimistic spirit ?
He came, he saw, he disassembled, and then he left us there.
I felt bewildered.
I felt betwixt.
I felt like another B word that isn't worth mentioning, but I'm just keeping it real!
This time we sat for almost 5 hours. I was trying to find the bright side.  I did have a safe place to relieve myself this time so there was that. But really, other than that, and the fact that my smart phone wasn't going to die I didn't have much else keeping the happy on my heart. As the day had turned to dusk finally two gentleman pull up who said they used to work for Uhaul and now they are independently doing road side assistance for all the damsels in distress. I'm pretty sure I laughed out loud at this point, and I told those two fellas that they were genius. We were just about ready to employ these two fellas when I kid you not, a huge tow truck pulls up and takes the trailer of the hitch and sets us free to head into Centraila WA. to find a complimentary place for the night. Oh how nice a complimentary room for the night! Are you sensing my sarcasm? It's pretty blatant. It would be hard to miss.

But here's where the story takes a twist, once we realized that one of our very favorite places on earth is in Centralia WA. 
We knew EXACTLY where we would be getting our complimentary stay, and we knew just what we would do too.  

We enjoyed our time as much as two people who have just moved their entire lives into two hellish boxes on wheels that keep breaking, can enjoy the time together. Even though, we would have preferred to be there under different circumstances we did make the most of it. See... enjoyment ;)

And here's the part where I tell you that I felt like God knew I was at my breaking point.  He also knew that Mo and I have always loved McMenamins.  He also knew that we needed some extra time together before we hit the ground running in Reno, NV with a new business adventure, and all kinds of busy with family and friends.

He also knew the very next day we would have to unpack and pack our trailer even though Uhaul said they would have guys out there to do this, but of course they didn't show up on time. Two things; Turns out that unpacking and packing again was my breaking point  and I didn't cuss. I cried.  That's how you know a real breaking point as opposed to an almost breaking point.  Tears. We did have one night of reprieve and then it was back to work. As I was lifting and scooting boxes back and forth to Mo I thought about the value of customer service. I thought about how it is that companies can get so big that they forget the little guy. I thought about just wanting to get home to my kiddos and I dreaded the thought that after we were done packing this trailer AGAIN, I would have to get back into that truck and travel another 500+ miles to get to our final destination. I'm pretty sure it was these thoughts and total exhaustion that brought on the tears, but then I remembered that this whole situation could have been so much worse. I started to turn on that optimistic radio and I thought about the fact that both Mo and I were alive, we were safe, we were well fed at McMenamins and we WOULD make it to NV eventually.
There are two more events in this story that are worth mentioning.  One is that after we were about only 250 miles away from NV the truck started smoking.  It was at this point that I started laughing. Remember up there when I said I had hit my breaking point? Well, it was really true, because this time I didn't freak out. I just laughed. What else can you do when in a situation like that? If you are a Moses you can be your normal, amazing, genius, super HOT, awesome self and lift the hood to the Uhaul truck, find out what is wrong, fix it and slowly move along on the road again. If you are a Noël you can laugh out loud and take a picture like this


The second event that happened before we made it safely to NV is that we almost ran out of gas. Don't believe the sign that says 32 miles to services right outside of Susanville. It's a lie. Our Uhaul truck  said we had 0 miles to empty for about 5 miles, and we coasted into Susanville on God fumes, but we made it and we are here now, and 
WE ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER!! NEVER TO RIDE IN A UHAUL TRUCK  EVER NEVER AGAIN!!