Our journey began very early. We were set in dad's truck and a small horse trailer borrowed from a friend. Immediately into our trek we decided that we would use my dad's Garmin gps to guide us there. My husband and I used his iPhone maps to get us there only days before and it was a very easy route. I on the other hand am not so handy at navigating iPhone maps yet.
The first shock came when we made the wrong exit 45 minutes into the trip. As I began to panic my dad assured me it was no big deal we would turn around. However, the next exit was a 25 minute drive. (This should have been the first clue all would not go as planned.)
I calculated our trip taking around 7-8 hours at the most. My dad has Parkinson's so I knew the faster we could make the trip the better for him, myself and the cow. Three hours there, stop for lunch and four or five hours at the most coming home, pulling a big cow SLOWLY!
Oh where was I .....sorry.....I pulled up the address of our destination, while driving. It took us off the main interstate across what looked like a harmless side road. In 20 minutes we were about a half mile in the sky looking down off the side of a cliff....gulp.....(This was the second sign trouble was looming)...We decided to stop so I could get a "good" look at the phone. Now, anyone who knows anything about gps, knows it needs to be updated. It chirped its cheerful "RECALCULATING" chant at me for the next 80-100 miles. Because it has not had a map update for many, many, many years.
We head on down the road only to find that this glorious trip up the mountain can only end by going down that same steep mountain. The brake pads on my dad's truck were smoking. My middle child chatting away while dad held onto the handles above his head, and I held onto the seat with my "seat." The tires squealed as we came off the mountain pulling that trailer. Only by the grace of God was it empty and not carrying my cow.
At the bottom of the hill, drenched in sweat, with smoking breaks, 3 hours after our initial departure time, we finally arrive in Scottsboro. I was familiar with going through the town when hubby and I had been there days before and realized how far behind schedule we really were. After getting back on familiar ground for about 30 minutes I made my 3rd mistake....
I should have learned my lesson and ignored that Garmin, but the constant "recalculating" coming from that black box convinced me to take ANOTHER wrong exit. This landed us going through the major part of town and I finally conceded and called the owner of the cow. We are going to be late...like not fifteen minutes..... but probably two hours. We stopped an hour later in town for food and then stopped to refuel. This was the first time my dad had showed any loss of patience for our father/daughter trip to get a milk cow.
I got out to pump gas and wouldn't ya know....it was one of those pumps where you pump and pump and it comes out one drop at a time. I laugh as I write this.....you just had to be there. Ten minutes into this my dad yells out the truck door. "Hey, you almost done?" I stick my head back through the door. I look at my sweet daddy...."I will be when the truck fills up." (It took 15 minutes to pump 15 gallons of gas.....no joke.)
We finally arrive and come in the back road to the farm. Finally, the day can't get any worse...could it??? Stay tuned for part 3....
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