More Adventures!

 Seems like Kyle and I often have,

what we like to call, 

ADVENTURES.

(I feel like Sam Gamgee... lol.)

Anyhow.

The day started out lovely.

The sun was shining with a few

fluffy clouds.

We hopped in Kyle's truck.

The two large dog crates were safely

in the bed of his truck,

all ready for our little piglets.

We drove for about 3 hours.

(The farm is nearly 5 hours away, just

south of Kansas City!)

The roads were pretty bumpy.

But seemed to be getting even bumpier.

I noticed that my seatbelt was tight.

(And my back was SUPER itchy and I 

really wanted to scratch it...)

But I had difficulty taking off my seatbelt,

because it had locked down.

When I got it off, I couldn't get it back on

because it had locked itself.

So I asked Kyle to watch for the next

rest area so we could pull off and I could

get it fixed.

We drove for a few miles, the road seemed a

little better, although still bumpy,

and I was able to get my belt back on.

(Kyle said it probably locked because of

all the jarring and bouncing from the road...

Between the itchy back and the locked belt,

I know Heavenly Father was trying to get our attention.)

But when we got to the rest area, 

Kyle pulled in anyway.

I told him my belt was fine,

but he said he just wanted to check the tires.

It "felt" like the road, but, it also kind of

felt like he might have a tire going down.

And it's always better to check.

Sure enough, his front right tire was bulging.

So....

we took it off and put on the spare.

Which was dry rotted and also FLAT.

So we put the bad tire back on.

And googled tire places near us.

As always on our adventures,

Heavenly Father was looking out for us.

We were only one exit and a few miles

away from a Firestone tire store in 

the lovely college city of Manhattan, KS.

We carefully made our way over there.

(I was quite nervous, prayed anxiously,

and then Rod called with a PayPal issue,

which changed my focus and by the time 

it was all fixed, I was all better... and 

able to enjoy the beautiful scenery!)

The Firestone guy was really helpful,

but didn't have the tires we needed in stock.

However, directly across the street is a

WalMart - and if they can sell us the tires

and install them, we can come back and he

will do an alignment on them.

And, WalMart had the tires and the time to

install them, AND they were better tires

and much less expensive.

(Although, during the over-an-hour wait,

we managed to buy enough stuff to off-set

the price difference.... lol.)

(Things I was going to buy anyway, they were

already in my WalMart cart for delivery since

our little Hays Wally World doesn't carry them

in the store all the time... plus... a few things.)

Once the tires were installed and inflated to

Kyle's preferred PSI, we drove across the

street to Firestone.

It was about 4:00-ish by that time.

There was already a car on the rack, but he

would get us in next.

So we walked next door to Taco Bell,

where we could eat and keep an eye on the truck.

They FINALLY took it in to work on at 5:30!

And it took them over an hour to do the alignment!

But it was finally done and we were on our way

out of town by 6:45.

We had been in touch with the pig people throughout

the morning and eventually switched our delivery

to Thursday by 2:00 instead.

We pulled into the house 12 hours after leaving.

Without  any pigs.

But with 2 really nice, well aligned, brand new

front tires.

Of course, the back tires aren't great either.

So Kyle took our car home and I kept his truck.

This morning Rod is driving his truck

(OH!!! In all this, he was able to finally

FIX HIS TRUCK!!!!!)

Another major blessing!!!

Anyhow. He is driving his truck out to the farm

and they are going to work on the fencing,

while I take Kyle's truck into Hays to get the

other two tires mounted and installed.

And get groceries.

And more chicken feed, because I'm not going to

be able to finish harvesting them until next week.

We are trying again tomorrow to get the pigs.

Then I have to teach a double on Friday.

Then I teach the all day Louisiana class on Saturday.

(And we get to go to the season ender at the

speedway) and then I teach another all-day

class on Sunday and then another double on Monday.

Whew! (Plus a ward funeral at noon on Monday...

I teach until noon, so if they need me I'll run 

over and help with just the lunch after the service.)

But that is my VERY LAST morning class!

YEA!!!!!!!

I also bought our plane tickets to Tucson!

We fly out of here on Thursday, October 23.

We are driving to Denver and leaving the car there

in their parking garage.

We will arrive in Tucson at 3:45 Thursday afternoon.

We leave there again Tuesday morning at 10:00

and get back here about noon.

It's a 2 hour flight from Denver to Tucson!

Not even enough time to eat our snacks!

Anyhow.

We are back home.

Rod's truck is fixed.

We have half the new tires we need.

All is well with the world.

(And I got a new toaster oven, I'm giving the

old one to Kyle to replace what he refers to

as his "easy back oven" toaster oven.)

Hahahaha.