Recently, Carmen's extended family got together for her Grandmother's eightieth birthday in Tennessee. Now, I know what a lot of you out there are thinking:

"What the heck were they doing in Tennessee? Don't Carmen's grandparents live in Michigan?"

Well, you'd be absolutely right of course, although I'm sure that I'd wonder how the whole lot of you out there knew that.

While it was a gathering for Carmen's Grandmother, there was a slight complication. Carmen's cousin Robin was pregnant, and the due date was very close to the time of the planned gathering. So we all went to Tennessee instead, except of course for those already there.

For those of you that are geographically challenged, Tennessee is much, much farther than Michigan. This presented us with a minor problem of how to get down there. Fortunately, we were already blessed with the use of Carmen's sister's car, (Lenore was coming with us, seeing as how she was part of the family in question) but the drive was still going to take us an estimated thirtheen to fifteen hours each way.

We all managed to free up our schedules, (although I ended up working an eighteen hour day the Wednesday before,) and we left early Thursday afternoon, and we were on our way.

As I had mentioned above, I had worked a little too much the day before and as a result was rather tired. Fortunately for me, I wasn't the one that was driving Thursday, so I took the opportunity to get caught up on my sleep somewhat. I do have a vague recollection of making it across the border with little to no problems, although the weather was pretty wet at the time.

By the time we were well into Ohio, the weather was downright nasty. Poor visibility due to rain, and poor road conditions not withstanding, the decision was made to stop just past Toledo for the night after seeing a particularly large trailer-truck related accident.

One of the things I feel I should mention at this point is the fact that one of the passenger windows in Lenore's car didn't quite close all the way. While someone had had the foresight to use plastic wrap of some sort to keep the elements out, we were not 100% convinced of its ability to deter theft. So we grabbed just about everything of value out of the car, and lugged it into the hotel with us.

The night was relatively uneventful. At least, I don't remember much of it, so I'm assuming that not much happened. In the morning, we were on our way again. We grabbed a quick breakfast in the hotel lounge/dining room, (continental breakfast was free) settled our bill and we were out the door and on the road. Well, we were on the parking lot, but we could see the road from where we were standing.

The rest of Ohio was incident free, thank goodness, and before you know it, we were singing the theme song to WKRP and crossing over the Ohio River into Kentuky.

Nature being what it is, there comes a time in every trip when one must stop to use the bathroom. Our time was fated to be far more disastrous and amusing than most. Allowing for time to use the facilities and potentially to stretch our limbs, it probably took us only fifteen minutes before we found Lenore's car refused to start up again.

Not knowing what to do, we opened up the hood and looked around. Everything seemed okay, except there was some kind of liquid dripping down onto the ground from somewhere close to the firewall (the thing that protects the passengers when the engine explodes).

Well, we were pretty much at a loss. Fortunately, the rest stop we picked was home to some state troopers for an afternoon. They were one parking lane over, enacting some sort of child seat safety awareness programme. I went over and talked to them briefly, and after they ascertained that they would be unable to help us themselves, called a nearby towing/repair company to come make a service call, describing our car (fairly accurately) as a silver VW Jetta.

Having been told that they would likely be about a half hour or so to reach us, we decided to make the best of things and have an impromptu picnic in one of the grassier areas of the rest stop. And eventually, we saw a flatbed truck sporting some sort of towing company title and logo on its side pull into the rest stop, drive slowly down the lane along side all the parked cars, past the silver VW Jetta with its hood up and people standing next to it, and on out of the rest stop.

After recovering from the initial shock, I noticed that we weren't the only ones staring. The officer that had made the initial call was looking slightly incredulous. He confirmed that yes, that was the truck that should have stopped and done reassuring car-repair-type things and made an inquiry on his radio to see what was going on.

It turned out that there was some sort of major accident nearby, and our saviour-to-be got diverted. This was confirmed a short time later, as a fire engine, then ambulance, and lastly a state trooper all rushed by on the interstate, sirens flashing. All well and good, but we were still without help, although another tow-truck had been called to take care of us.

A short time later, a second truck pulled into the rest stop, and drove down the wrong lane, towards the state troopers. At this point, we were smiling to ourselves, watching as one of the officers waved him back and over into the other lane where our car was.

That all straightened out, the truck found the Jetta, and started backing up to it.

Hang on, did I say Lenore's car was a silver Jetta? But this was a gold one!

By now, both our motley crew and the state troopers are laughing out loud, all the more so, due to the fact that the car that the truck had mistakenly backed up to belonged to the trooper who made the call in the first place!

At this point, we explained, using a lot of pointing, that the car with the problems was actually the other Jetta...

The one with the hood up.

And with the people waving frantically next to it.

I think you get the idea.

So finally, after a two hour layover, we get some guy to come look at our engine. For what it's worth, he seemed capable enough, but then again, we'll never know, because we tried starting the car, and of course it started right away. It was suggested that there was probably wrong with our starter, but the dripping fluid, which seemed like mostly water was not satisfactorily explained.

It was suggested that the best course of action was to just get things checked out in town. We weren't far from Lexington, and the guy who looked at our car gave us reasonable, although not perfect directions. We thanked everybody and headed out. On our way, we passed the car that had diverted our first tow truck. It had flipped over and was in a ditch at the side of the interstate.

After floundering around a little, trying to make the most sense of the directions, we ended up in an auto shop that was part of a K-Mart. They were very helpful, as people seemed to be in the South. We were certainly in the South at least. The air was thick with southiness.

Someone from the auto shop tested our battery and looked at the engine, and everything seemed fine. He mentioned though that if it was the starter overheating or something similar, that they probably wouldn't be able to detect it if the engine was cool enough.

As for the leaking fluid, it turned out to be rain water that had gathered in the chassis of the car, and hadn't had a chance to fully drain since all the rain that we got over the first day of travelling.

Again thanking everyone that helped us, we decided that now would be a good time to get something to eat.