Hindsight would show this could have been avoided, especially with better foresight. But some things you can only learn from experience, like the sound of a tire shredding off your rim.

Apparently when the can of Fix-A-Flat says take your tire for professional repair, they mean it. However, it had been holding for a week, and showed no ill-effects driving around town the night before. When we first heard a rumble, Beckie pulled off the 101 and I checked the pressure, inspected the tire — all seemed good. 3 miles later the rumble got much much worse, and just as we entered the merge ramp from the 101 to the 202 it felt like we were rolling on a cinder block and Kenga ground to a halt.

Stuck at the apex of the turn of the merge lane form the 101 to the 202. Changing a tire on a truck is non-trivial, but not significant. In a parking lot. All I thought about were the stories every few months of someone creamed on the side of the highway, and unloading my children and my parents next to the jersey barrier while cars flew by at 75. Not. We shit bricks in the car with our seatbelts on waiting for help. 911 was barely worth my taxes, but after almost an hour AAA came through. Private enterprise trumps public services once again .

The tow-driver’s experience and a pneumatic jack had us off in about 10 min, I gave the guy a $20 for gratitude, and we still made it to Zoolights before 8. After about 30 minutes I got real tired and finally got a hit from the flask full of kahlua.

G was in awe of the mechanical giraffe talking with her, funnies thing since Zombieland