My girls are really into Christmas.
And I mean, they are really into it.
Ellie and Sarah definitely get that from their mom’s side. I’m way more of a Grinch, although I’ll admit that I’ve gotten more into the spirit of the season since we’ve had kids.
Over the past three years, one of the little family traditions we’ve started is driving around to see all the lights and Christmas decorations. The girls can’t get enough of it, and it’s a good excuse to drive around after dark and get the girls to sleep.
This past Friday night, we decided to drive up to Cleveland to walk through the 50 Nights of Lights display on Cotton Row.
Ellie has been asking for weeks when she was going to get to “run through the tunnel of lights.”
The girls had a blast.
We decided that we would make it a two-night affair by driving over to Leland on Saturday night as the town turned on the lights and floats on Deer Creek.
Our good friends, Joe and Barb Forrester hopped in the car with us, and we were on the road just before the sun went down.
We made it through one red light before we heard a loud banging noise on the back passenger tire.
We pulled into a parking lot and noticed the tire was low, but we couldn’t find any obvious obstruction.
So we drove on.
About a mile outside of town, we started to feel a rumble.
I have to admit that in over two decades of driving, I’ve never had a flat tire.
This was a first for me, and being from the tail end of the millennial generation, I had some fears that I wouldn’t be able to do this.
My dad is a natural mechanic, so I had plenty of experience taking tires off and putting them back on.
I’m also thankful that Joe was there to offer his expertise.
We managed to get the spare tire out of the back of the van, along with the jack and the lug wrench.
By this time, the sun was almost completely down, and we had moved the girls out of the van to safety on the other side of the ditch near a field.
The van was in the air, and we were loosening the lugs when a state trooper pulled up.
He was kind enough to sit there with his blue lights on until we had successfully changed the tire.
When the job was complete, we decided the best course of action was to go back to Indianola and try to make it to a tire shop before closing time.
We didn’t make it very far before we began to realize that the spare tire was flat as well.
Joe and I dropped the women and children off at Peasoup’s on the way back into town, and we managed to get the van to Walmart, only to learn that the service center had closed for the night.
We locked the van, and we started walking.
We opted to walk to Joe’s house, since it was less than a mile away. We got into one of his vehicles and drove to my house and picked up my car, and we met back at Peasoup’s.
By this time, we were hungry and not much in the spirit of Christmas.
We ate supper and decided to call it a night.
The tire was fixed the next day, but the spare was almost disintegrated by the time we had finished driving.
That’s the story of our failed trip to see the Leland Christmas lights.
We hope to get back over there one day this week to let the girls gaze in amazement at them.
We’re thankful that the situation wasn’t any worse than it was, and we’re grateful for good friends to share such adventures with.
And to the trooper who stopped and kept us safe until we got our tire changed, thank you.
