Leaving home for six weeks to visit family over 2000 miles away by car is HECTIC, to say the least. It is NOT a vacation. Despite our love for our family and friends and the joy of seeing them in person, this trip is NEVER relaxing. And the drive home from Kentucky, USA to Michoacan, Mexico… Well, that part was an epic travel nightmare involving three flat tires, two dead batteries, and a new fuel pump in three days. Yes, that really happened.
Arriving in Kentucky – The Fun Begins
Getting to Kentucky was easy and uneventful. Once we were there the troubles began. Our transmission, which was repaired in Mexico seven months earlier, decided to give us problems as soon as we arrived. And wouldn’t you know that it was only one month past its repair warranty!? Instead of taking it to the shop right away, we planned, (notice I say we planned), to drive it back to Mexico and have it fixed there. Almost everything is cheaper in Mexico. That includes transmission work.
The second week of our trip, I was involved in a minor car accident. After I made a left-hand turn at an intersection, a car came over a hill and hit my right, rear quarter panel, and bumper. Thankfully, no one was hurt. It shot my nerves for the day though. We put the $1000 we received from the insurance for the damage in our savings and decided to make the repairs when we returned home to Mexico. You know, like the transmission work… to be continued…
Things Get Hairy – Gotta Love The Social Life
Needless to say, putting two families into one home is not easy. All in all, we, (our parents and us), did a-okay. Everyone survived our time in Kentucky, physically and mentally :-) I missed everyone before we even left, although I was eager to return to Mexico.
We have many friends and a large family, thus it was impossible for us to spend time with everybody. We tried our best but our social life basically quadruples when we return to Kentucky and we are never ready for it! Life is slower in Mexico despite being loco with four kids, and actually… we like it that way!
Course then you have the horrid shopping experience, where an employee subtly tries to kick me out of Goodwill and another shopper threatens to call the cops on me… yes, really. If you haven’t read about that experience yet, you should!
And What Happened to The Transmission?
If you couldn’t tell from the first subheading… the transmission did not last till Mexico. We waited until the last minute to get it fixed in Kentucky. So we remained in the US for an extra two weeks. The plus to this is that Brad had an acquaintance willing to give us a good deal. So far, so good. I pray that we won’t have transmission problems for a long time.
The insurance money from my minor car accident came in handy at this point. Instead of using it to repair the body damage, we used it, (plus some), for the transmission costs. We will use our own money for the bodywork here in Mexico. Maybe, just maybe, that accident wasn’t such a bad thing after all!
The Epic Travel Nightmare – From Kentucky to Mexico
According to Webster’s epic means:
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telling a story about a hero or about exciting events or adventures
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very great or large and usually difficult or impressive
Other than the hero part, everything else about epic fits our trip home perfectly. It all began with a flat tire…
Then there was a second flat tire less than 20 miles after the first flat tire…
Before the next post, we had almost made it to Texas! However, it was not an uneventful drive…
These flowers look so pretty right? Yeah, I had a little time to admire them…
Yes. We borrowed the trooper’s cell phone and looked up the number of a nearby Kingdom Hall. A fellow Jehovah’s Witness answered and then came to our aid within the hour. We had never met this man before in our life. He cared for us and found us a place to stay. That is our united worldwide brotherhood and I love it!
Did I mention that I stepped in a pile of fire ants too? Let the travel nightmare continue…
Before the next pic, we had a great day in Laredo, Texas with some more friends. The kids had pool time, I had shopping time, and Brad had rest time. Whew!
Our third and last flat tire was deep in Mexico. Right in front of a tire shop, of all places :-) An old man changed out our flat tire for a new one we had purchased in the US. It was relatively simple and fast. Thank goodness for small victories!
What have we learned from this travel nightmare? That sometimes life is just plain stinky. Period. But hey, it made for an epic blog post! And I can’t tell you how happy we were to arrive at our home in Mexico.
Although our story doesn’t end there! Nope. Within the month we would deal with the death of Brad’s grandpa and moving to a new home. Such is life. If you take a lickin’ just keep on kickin’. Does anyone know where that old saying came from? I should Google it, but my bed is calling me. Signing off, Tina
P.S. Don’t forget to leave me a comment below ;-)
Originally published June 9, 2016
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A ridiculous amount of coffee was consumed in the process of creating this project. Add some fuel if you'd like to keep me going ;-) Gracias!
an old timex commercial. it takes a licking and keeps on ticking. : ) sounds like my disastrous trip to michigan from new jersey a few years back.
I didn’t know that about Timex but I knew I heard it somewhere ;-) Thanks for sharing and commenting!
Wow. Wow. Wow. Two flat tires back to back and the fire ants would have done me in.
It was pretty insane… by the last tire we were pretty much like, “Yeah, another tire blew. Not surprised. We are used to it.”
I definitely understand how difficult it is to travel! Once my family went from the east coast to the west coast within around five days. At least we didn’t have as many issues as you guys unfortunately did!
We have never had a road trip quite like this one. Hopefully this one will be the last of it’s kind!
I am glad you made it home eventually! Life always throws us surprises, to say the least!
Me too. It felt great to be home even though we ended up traveling back to the States within two months for a tragic death :-( Now we are home again and I am once again happy to be here!
Hi! We live in Chetumal! We are in our 6th year serving in Mexico. Have you explored our area?
We drove near the area on our way to Belize in 2014 but that is as close as we got :-) We will have been in Mexico for five years in October. You have us beat by a year :-) We just had our Bible convention in Guadalajara and it was amazing. Thanks for commenting. Wish you well!
Hi Ernspikers, sending you loads of love and hopes that your now is better than then. We think of you often and care. Keep on keeping the faith.
Thank you, Jordan! Have a great week :-)