So we pulled into the rest stop and awaited for my father in-law to return to check things out. We had called him when it happened since we were both traveling home and his car was ahead of us. He happened to find an auto store at the exit he got off of to turn around. There he procured a new spark plug and some other items after listening to the noise through a cell phone. After deciding that we were not able to fix the problems ourselves we called a tow truck. 30 seconds later the tow truck was there and I was scrambling to get the kids car seats out to get them into the other vehicle, then I hopped into the tow truck with my wife's sister's boyfriend and the tow truck driver.
On the way to the body shop we got to hear "tow" stories in a thick hardly understandable Tennessee accent about people falling asleep at the wheel and going through the divider wires, running into trees, and an elderly person who pulled over and could not figure out how to restart their BMW so they called our Tow truck driver. He got there and simply pushed the button for them to start it, then left.
So we take some Tennessee back roads and end up at a gas station/service station and the guy drops my truck off, gets his 20 dollars and pulls out. Being a Saturday, the place was packed and a sneaky looking guy with "Tommy" on his shirt told me that he would fix 'er right up while holding a rolled up wad of cash, and then walked away quickly. He didn't say how long, or how much. I kept following him around and asking him and his response was always the same, "We'll fix 'er right up".
Finally after waiting about 20 minutes this guy that could have been Carl from Slingblade's twin brother comes up to me and asks me in the same voice and mannerisms as Carl to pull my truck in the garage. Another 20 minutes later they changed the spark plug and they were done. Finally I cornered Tommy again and he whipped out his cash wad and said, "How about 40 dollars" I threw him two twenties and hit the road. I was shocked that the whole incident was that cheap of a fix.
We got back on the road and were going good until I noticed that we needed gas. The kids were asleep so I tried to stretch it out until the last possible second. So we pulled over at an exit and pulled up to the gas pump and I swiped my card and started opening my tank lid when the tenant came out and said, "We just lost electricity, the whole exit did, so you'll have to wait to get gas." Twenty minutes later Jess and I decided to risk it to drive down to the next exit to get gas. Little did we know, the next exit was 15 miles down the highway. So we turned the air conditioning off and prayed that we would make it in a drive that felt like an hour to the next exit to find the gas station.
The next gas station had electricity and we filled up and noticed an Arby's so we decided to get chocolate shakes for the last leg of our trip. We ordered the shakes in the drive thru which I ordered 3 small shakes, and I asked for one shake to be split into two cups. They said to pull forward. Once at the window the girl asked me again what I wanted. I said that I had two kids and asked if it would be possible to get a small shake in two cups so each cup would be filled halfway, I said "Is that possible" She stared at me dumbfounded and said "I.......have........no idea". After a couple of awkward seconds and consulting her manager she came back with 2 shakes in even smaller cups for the kids. Jess and I were so slaphappy at that time that we laughed about her quote for the next 2 hours.
Finally we had reached the cut in the hill from Kentucky going into Cincinnati and of course, we hit stopped and slow moving traffic, but eventually after 15.5 hours, we made it home. Krissy brought us milk and cookies and Magic Hat #9 and I ordered Pad Thai from China Wok and ended my birthday with a great meal.
Bottom Line - Birthdays are not just another day
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