Trapped in Southboro

It might be a lovely town, but I wouldn't know, since I was trapped at this corner. Overlooking the intersection of Route 9 and Somethingorother Street, at the Mobil Station where my CRV got herself an unexpected spa treatment - and 4 spanky new brakes.

Not how we planned on starting the holiday weekend, but hey. It was a good thing I did Passover right, because somebody up there liked me. We got super lucky, driving down to New Jersey on Friday morning.

Leaving early to avoid traffic, chugging along 90 towards 84 and everything's groovy. All the sudden the car starts making this crazy noise, one of those loud vibrations that gets in your head and makes your ears ring. It wasn't looking good. So much for leaving early...

We checked the sunroof, all the different window situations, all the doors... and finally had to pull over. Craig was extra proud of himself, since he, in a fit of manacity (it's a word, describing extreme manhood), diagnoses pre-pullover, "Sounds like the rear brake's locked up." Well, I have nooooo idea how his spidey sense got that one, since he is not an under-the-car kind of a guy, but yep, the rear tire was super hot and smelled scary. The brake had spontaneously locked on while we drove 75 mph happily down the highway.

Keeping the girls busy during our multi hour stay at the intersection meant a lot of trips into Walgreens, as you can imagine, since it was the only business on that stretch of highway and we were left with nothing but time to kill. Those are the nicest Walgreens workers ever. We considered writing the corporate website even. Sooooo nice. After the second visit, I tell the cashier why she just might see us again before the day's over and what does she do? She directs us to this lovely park a few blocks away. Pond, playgrounds, field. Awesome.

That's Craig playing basketball with his new friend, and Maya playing whoknowswhat with her new friends. Zoe's head is the furry thing in the lower corner. She's coloring leaves with a crayon. I didn't have a lot of options. Did I? 4 crayons in my bag. And my job to entertain her.

Me, I left my yarn In The Car which was In The Air. Crap. Craig told me I could not walk back and ask the guy to lower the car so I could have it. Strangely, I didn't challenge him on that. Hmmm. Instead, I spent an hour coloring leaves and woodchips from the playground. Grass too, but that was hard. And didn't take the crayon so well. Apparently, I also had my camera. (I'll spare you the inner ear, eyeball, and nostril series of shots. We had a lot of time on our hands.)

After a few hours at the park with our adoptive family, we went back to Walgreens again. Nice shiny bathrooms, our friendly staff buddies and some drinks. (The wrong kind of drinks if you ask me....) Then back to the gas station to find we had another 45 mins.

So, back to Walgreens. (Passover, what Passover??) Got some Wonderbread, an Oscar Meyer ham pack, a few of the single Kraft cheese sticks (right there next to the beef jerky), and a couple of fruit cups. Walgreens Lunch. Maya says we could do Walgreens Thanksgiving with a little imagination, but I'm hoping not to find out.

So no knitting to show, but an entertaining story (?) maybe. Just get your car serviced before you go on your next drive - or if you don't, be sure to break down in Southboro, since you can't beat the convenient Mobil/Walgreen's/Playground combo.

And be sure to get your knitting out of the car BEFORE it's up on the thing.