Friday morning was relatively quiet. I worked with the proofreader some more, and worked on packing us up and making lunch for us before we left. The kids kept themselves entertained, and then helped load up the van. I keep thinking we did a really good job with how little we brought until it’s packing day, and then I hate everything we own! We are working on a more streamlined packing and loading process. To a certain point, it’s unavoidable, since there are, in fact, six of us. Also, we brought our camping gear, which takes up a lot of space.
We headed out to a paleontology museum after checkout, but sadly, it was closed! So we went to a city park that offered wifi so Lover could work while everyone else played. It was a very fun, inclusive park for kids of all abilities. They even had a swing for kids in wheelchairs! The kids mostly played on the merry go round until it was too hot and everyone was losing it in the 90+ degree heat. So we changed gears and headed to the pavilion where Lover was working and played games there instead. We played Dutch Blitz (Keilana won), the dice game that Lover made up a while ago, and Cassandra played Blink by herself for a long time. Everyone else got Chik Fil A for lunch, and that made me REALLY want to go there for lunch! Did you know that their lemonade has 74 grams of sugar? Yikes!
Finally, Lover was done with work and we headed out. The mountains in Orem are pretty spectacular, and they’re visible from everywhere we were in Orem. We spotted a pretty mural on an Asian market and pulled over to snap a quick picture. We had just gotten onto the highway when we discovered that our rear tire had gone flat! Lover got us onto the off ramp, and then after inspecting the now very flat tire, made the executive decision to drive us into the nearby In n Out parking lot, to get us off the highway. Once we got there, we called AAA, and they said they’d be an hour and fifteen minutes. So Lover decided to get a head start and loosen the flat tire, and get out our spare tire. The kids were troopers about just sitting on the curb waiting, while I kept an eye on them, and made sure no one ran over Lover who was laying on the ground in the parking lot trying to get the spare out of the most awkward location ever and of course it was all rusted underneath there so it was super hard to get it loose.
Right after he got the spare free, the AAA guy showed up! It had only been about 20 minutes. He used his fancy tools to pop off the busted tire, slap on the spare, and then drove over to the Discount Tire with us to drop off our busted tire. He was super nice and friendly, and so were the guys at Discount Tire. God was definitely looking out for us! We had purchased new tires recently at Discount Tire, so the whole debacle only cost us $10. Then after a 2 hr delay, we got back on the road!
And, someone had to go potty. So we stopped at Walmart, had a bathroom break, and then loaded up on sugary snacks. It was just what the doctor ordered after a stressful couple of hours, and besides, we never did get that lemonade from Chik Fil A! We ended up doing Burger King for dinner on the road, and salty fried fast food never tasted so good.
We finally reached our Motel 6 a little before 10, and it was a shockingly nice room! Clean and modern – we’re finding Motel 6 to be a great option on this trip so far! Just make sure to read the reviews! 🙂 We’re staying the night in Rigby, ID, and officially added Idaho to the list of states visited!