Nostalgia // Romantic Virginia, Part Tow-Truck

My mother suggested recently that I share an incident that occurred on one of our many road trips to Virginia. In keeping with my Virginia memory series, I'd love to share. Keep in mind that this happened many years ago and I am relying on what was my teenage brain at the time to remember the details.

This is what happened...

Every trip to Virginia, we stopped halfway in Emporia, which is a small town off I-95 where we redirect onto I-58 to head towards the Virginia coast. Emporia was our bathroom break town and for some reason, probably because it was the nicest place there, we always went into Peebles to use the restroom. Peebles is a small department store, similiar to Kohl's, where while we waited for each other, we could browse.

We had just finished our 30 minute bathroom break--seriously though, 6 girls using the bathroom at the same time took forever...--and climbed into our trusty gray Caravan.

Still in the parking lot, as we pulled away from Peebles to jump back on the interstate, an incredibly loud sound caused all of us to jump and my dad to slam on the brakes. It sounded like rocks were hitting the side of the van but as we looked around, we could see there were no rocks. My dad eased the gas pedal down and, again, rocks. Since there wasn't anything actually hitting the outside of the van, he decided to pop the hood to see what was wrong. He found the culprit under the hood: a broken belt that would rotate and slap the inside of the hood of the van whenever the gas pedal was pushed. To be honest, I have no idea what kind of belt it was or what it was used for.

So, we had to call a tow truck. My parents were troopers though. Dealing with five young girls, in the heat of the afternoon already tired from a couple hours of driving, couldn't have been easy.

The tow truck showed up and the driver didn't quite know what to do with all of us. Those trucks usually just have enough room in them to fit the driver and few passengers from the car being towed. Well there were seven of us and he didn't know what to do. I'm not sure if this was legal, but he hooked the van up to his truck and then all seven of us rode, tilted backwards in the van to the shop. This was, of course, great fun for all of us kids. We thought the whole thing was hilarious.

Now, I don't remember the rest of the story in detail, but somehow the van got fixed and we made it to Virginia, much later in the day than we anticipated. Very animatedly, we told the story to Nanny and Pops when we arrived at their house and they were amused. Or possibly annoyed, since they had to wait up for us to get there.

Anyways, a fun memory that I feel very blessed to have. We have had more than our fair share of car trouble on the way to Virginia, but we always made it. Every single time.

Thanks for reading--sorry I don't have any pictures to share this time!