It was a dark and stormy night.....

and, it was only about 3:30 in the afternoon!

But, first things first....we left Santee early Friday morning, having spent the night at Big Water CG (disappointment), intending to make it up to Emporia Virginia. You know how things have a way of starting out bad, and just do not get any better? There were some tricky turns to get back on I-95, and, naturally, I took the wrong path. Not only that, but I tried to turn around where there wasn't enough room, and instead of stopping right there, unhooking, turning around, I chose to drive on up the road, suspecting it was a dead end.....it was, but only after about 1/2 mile, locked gate.

Water on both sides of the embankment, so, unhook the toad, move it up front, then back the 1/2 mile out. Shelby was a nervous wreck! I was proud that I could back that far just using the mirrors.

Got back on the road about ten miles, near Summerton SC, and the steering wheel started vibrating.....I knew what it was before it happened, started to slow down. The right front tire blew, and I tried to remember what i had heard about how to handle a blow out. Fortunately, I knew not to hit the brake (it was hard to keep my foot off that pedal!), steered toward the shoulder, and it slowed on it's own.

Finally got calm enough to call Good Sam, and a few minutes later got a call from T&l Tire Service in Sumter (about 35 miles away). I hadn't been paying attention to mile markers, and had to guess about where I was located. So......2-1/2 hours later I finally was able to talk to the tow truck driver, get him turned around (he was looking for me on the southbound side), and learned that his jacks would not fit under the MH, had to raise it with my jacks before they would fit.

I had planned to replace all the tires when we got home, but the blow out made me want to consider it long before that. In the meantime the owner of the business showed up (he had been driving around looking for his driver), and I got him to get me a price on six new (heavier duty) Goodyear replacements that a lot of people are buying to replace the Michelins (who have a history of sidewall failures). The price wasn't the greatest, but it was close, and it's awfully hard to negotiate alongside I-95 with the trucks blowing by at 70 m.p.h.

We put my used spare tire on the rim (yeah, I've been hauling that thing around for 2 years now, complaining all the time about the space that it takes up in the storage bay. We followed him back to Sumter where he had five of the tires in stock, and he sent one of his men all the way to Columbia S.C. to get another. It was about 2:30 by then, and, with five tires installed, everyone sat around and waited for the guy to return from Columbia. The MH was blocking the bays, and they couldn't do any other work. He showed about 5:30, and we took off for Florence to a C.G. for the night.

Now, back to the dark and stormy night.....I had been up early, watching the Weather Channel to see what was happening up ahead, and it seemed to be clear except for some rain up around Richmond.

When we hit the exit for the Richmond bypass, I thought, it's saturday afternoon, so the interstate thru Richmond should be fairly clear....wrong again! A little farther up the road, the sky turned totally black, and the snow began to fall, and every mother's son in Richmond had decided to go somewhere that day. I mean, the traffic was bumper to bumper at 60 mph, in the snow, and I couldn't believe what a situation I had gotten into.

By the time we got to the CG on the other side of Richmond, we were both totally exhausted, parked and went to bed.

We're home now, the MH water lines have all been drained, got a pizza for dinner, and life is good!