Greenfield, Indiana Wal-Mart saves the day!

Its 8:43pm (mom, that's for you!) as I start my evening edition of the Blogericks. We just passed Indianapolis on our right hand side with the sun setting behind it...pretty! We weren't intending to still be in Indiana, however, we had our first RV snafu. Let me preface this for our worried parents by saying that we are fine!

Let's flashback to yesterday. We noticed into the trip that every time we stopped, our two front tires looked low on air. We figured we ran over something or that there was a small leak. Our plan was to just keep filling 'em up with air and deal with it when we got to San Francisco. Flash forward to today (feel like you're watching an episode of Lost?). I had driven the first 170 miles of today's trip and was ready to have a little stretch and bathroom break. We take turns going into rest areas usually. Someone stays with the pets in the RV while the other goes in and then we switch. When Jimmy came back from his trip inside, I see him talking to this woman while pointing to our tires. We knew they were looking low but figured we'd hit a gas station since this stop didn't have an air pump. Jimmy comes back into the RV and says that this woman and her semi driving partner Rich from Werner Trucking can help. They have an air pump attached to their rig. As Rich was filling up our tires, he noticed that there were cracks all over. He suggested we get them checked out as soon as possible since he didn't think it was a good idea to drive much further. They were in pretty bad shape and on their way to blowout heaven. We hit the Pilot gas station/truck stop a few miles up the road though we didn't see a service center like Rich had said. Jimmy inquired inside and we were given two business cards of guys that will travel to fix tires and other odd and end vehicle problems. We call both guys. The first guy has 2 appointments scheduled before ours so it would be at least 2hrs before he could help us. The second guy doesn't have our tires in stock and would need to drive to Indianapolis to get them. We had passed a huge RV Sales Center on the way off of the exit so we decided to call them and see if they stocked tires. The guy at Mount Comfort RV Sales suggested something so simple that we didn't think of - Wal-Mart Supercenter. Thank goodness we've got this Verizon Broadband card and can look up anything on the 'net in a moments notice. Its definitely been really helpful, especially in this situation. We look up Wal-mart locations and within seconds we're talking to Wes in their Auto Service center. They have our tires in stock, however they were closing 7pm. It was 6:39pm. Wes said if we made it before 7pm they could help us. I think we pulled into the lot at 6:53pm, phew - just made it. Wes takes one look at both front tires and says: "You drove all of the way from Jersey with these? You are so lucky you made it" I do feel as though we have someone looking out for us just because of the way it all went down. Wes, John Jacobs and Pat Johnson went out of their way and stayed 1 1/2 hours AFTER closing to put on two new front tires to the Four Winds. When we went to hand them a big phat tip, they refused and said they couldn't take it. Wes said we could call 1 800 Wal-Mart and let them know what we thought. Not only do I plan on calling, but I will write an email and a letter.

Before the tire snafu, we were going to stop in Effingham, IL for the night at another dog friendly RV park. However, we're back to our original plan now to stop in Terre Haute, IN for dinner and then see how we're feeling after that. There is an RV park there that we researched - dog friendly, of course! :) We're hoping to have our first sit down meal at a restaurant tonight since the sun is almost set and the pets won't be too hot while we're eating. I'm crossing my fingers that we find a Cracker Barrel. What's a road trip without a stop at Cracker Barrel?

Pictures are coming soon, too. I left the connector to upload our pictures at home so we stopped off a Best Buy today and picked one up. Once they're online, I will post a link to smugmug and you can keep checking back since we'll just keep adding to that link.

~*Jennie*~