<p>Okay, I’ll start. My D. called this afternoon. She and college friend were to leave DC area early this morning to drive back to school in southwestern VA. They are pulling a 2 horse trailer, with 2 high strung thoroughbreds. First, they discover when servicing truck that the brakes are shot and have to be redone this am before they can leave (okay, I’m really glad they found out, but why didn’t this get checked before departure day?). They hit the road around noon–I get a call around 2 and they had a blow out on tire on trailer and the girl hauling doesn’t have the incline ramp in order to change the tire. Plus they are on section of I-81 with no shoulder. They had to drive 10 miles an hour to next exit, about 5 miles, backing up traffic like crazy. They get off exit and first place to pull off is a Days Inn where they stop with trailer. My D. leaves friend with the horses and hikes down the road until she finds a semi truck service center. Luckily all the mechanics and truckers felt very sorry for a damsel in distress and took care of the problem. At last call they were back on road and having to call ahead to ask receiving barn to stay open for them as they would be in past closing time.</p>
<p>S left last Thursday driving alone in his ancient SUV packed to the gills with all the requisite stuff needed for his new swinging bachelor pad off campus apartment (who knew you could fit a patio table and 4 big chairs plus all his other assorted junk in a little Ford?) His school is 2.5 hours away. 1.5 hours down the interstate his transmission blows out. Luckily he is able to roll off the interstate onto the grass while smoke pours from under the hood (and it’s 95 degrees outside). He tries to call DH at work but his cell is turned off. He tries to call my cell but I’m getting a haircut and don’t hear it ring because of all the hair dryers! He calls home and 16 yr. old bro. answers but doesn’t bother to tell him what happened once he found out I wasn’t home! </p>
<p>So he finally calls us about 4 hours later and says a DOT truck soon found him broken down by the interstate and called a tow truck which towed his car to a transmission shop. S then called his roommate who was about an hour behind him on the road to come and pick him up at transmission shop, transfer as much of S’s stuff as possible to roommates car and travel on to school. Fixing the transmission was going to cost more than the car was worth so we sold it to the transmission shop owner and spent the next few dats searching for a new vehicle for S. He came home this weekend to get it and left late this afternoon headed back to school. He should be almost there by now…whew!</p>
<p>How stressful! We didn’t have car trouble, just navigation trouble. Our 18 hour trip turned out to be 21 hours thanks to S’s idea of buying a GPS system and hooking it up to his laptop. We took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up on a very winding 2 lane road in northern Kentucky. You know how those men don’t like to ask for directions! We bought a road Atlas once we finally got to the college.</p>
<p>mkm56, sounds like you’ve got yourself a Sweet Briar girl. Am I right? I tried to get my D to seriously consider Sweet Briar after she was admitted, but she’d pretty much made up her mind to go elsewhere by then. She wouldn’t even visit the campus. I still think Sweet Briar might have been a great match. But fortunately, she’s happy where she is.</p>
<p>No, she is actually at Virginia Intermont. Very small school–largest major is equine science followed by photography. She’s enjoyed it there, but now is wondering about what to do in real life with her equine degree :).</p>
<p>My own trip to college over 30 years ago - I rented a u-haul trailer and had them hook it up to my 69 Mustang Mach I with a bumper hitch. Knowing nothing about loading a trailer, I just filled it without paying attention to balancing it. I was heading down the freeway in the middle of nowhere when the trailer started weaving from side to side. It got so bad that I was bouncing across a couple of lanes before I could slow down enough. I eventually got stopped and on the side of a freeway completely unloaded and reloaded the trailer - this time paying attention to the balance marks painted inside. They also had installed the bumper hitch slightly off-center which contributed to the problem - I had to reposition it. The bumper got dented up a little but I replaced it and I even still have the Mach!</p>
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<p>Wow, taking two horses to college? Most schools won’t let you keep so much as a parakeet, much less a thoroughbred.</p>
<p>;-)</p>
<p>Aaaaaaw, a 69 Mach I! Do tell me it was that bright yellow-orange one.</p>
<p>Ah yes, Virginia Intermont.
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<p>“She’s enjoyed it there, but now is wondering about what to do in real life with her equine degree.”</p>
<p>How about the Horse Racing industry?</p>
<p>Well, what we had hoped would be a relaxing family vacation before leaving S at college turned into an endless series of shopping trips as S remembered one & then another thing he forgot that he needed for college. If he had told us in HI, it would have been fine & I could have easily rounded things up, but in LA, I let hubby drive & TRY to navigate thru the frenzied freeways. It turned out to be much less relaxing than we had hoped, especially since the last 5 nights we stayed in a hotel with paper-thin walls, where you could hear EVERYTHING being done by your neighbors & the elephants in the room above, at midnight & beyond! Oh well, son was ready to appreciate dorm life after that! <grin></grin></p>
<p>MKM, how interesting. Not to divert the thread but what is your D’s college like? Does your D own the horses, or are they property of the school, or (???). And not to be nosy but where in D.C. does one keep thoroughbreds? For that matter, where are they kept on campus, and does your D care for them 24/7?</p>
<p>How about this, last year? My flight to school was at about 6:30 am, so I woke up at 4:30 to shower and get ready to go to the airport. When I step out of the shower, and go downstairs, my mom is standing by the washing machine, freaking out. Apparently some big pipe had burst and was leaking water all over our mudroom floor and into the basement. My dad was on a business trip out of town and my mom had no idea how to fix it… but luckily my boyfriend came over just in time and figured out how to temporarily shut the water off. He was planning on driving us both to the airport to say goodbye anyway, but my mom almost decided not to come with me because she was so freaked out that the house would collapse in her absence! A great start to my first day of college.</p>
<p>Oh my D and I had a great trip from Chicago to Virginia.</p>
<p>Due to construction and rerouting it took us 1.5 hours to go from our house to the rental van location. (Long story why we had to rent a van.) We get there to find out that they gave away out van. Yes we had a guaranteed reservation. But they gave it away. They found us another van, in Chicago. The easiest most direct way to get to the new location was through a notoriously bad section of Chicago. (My daughter found a bullet in the parking lot of the rental van company.)</p>
<p>We get new van, it smells kinda funny, but the ac works so we go home to pack.</p>
<p>Early Sat. a.m. we are going to leave. My daughter wants to deposit her last paycheck at her bank to we get there at 7:15 a.m. The atm eats her debit card. So we call the 800 number and we are told that they will send a new card to the home address, and that she can get a temporary card when the branch opens at 8:30. So we wait.</p>
<p>Get caught up in Skyway traffic of course.</p>
<p>Lunchtime, still think that the van smells funny, and my head hurts a little bit.
After lunch daughter starts to complain about headache. Then I start to get a nosebleed. Can’t find anythin but wetnaps to use, and have to pull over. I decide that it might be best to drive with the windows open and get the bad smell out of the van.</p>
<p>We hoped to get further in the evening, but due to problems along the way, we don’t make it to Virginia and decide to stay in WVa. Of course we don’t have a reservation and rooms are scarce. Okay, really there were no rooms. I go into the 3rd hotel and there are 3 people waiting in front of me, and the guy behind the counter says that they only have two rooms left and that the TV doesn’t work in the rooms. Two of the couples walk away to discuss it, one of them asks if they can see the room before they commit. I tell that guy that I will take whatever they have left, if the others don’t want it. The people ahead of me decide to get on the phone and try to find a place. I take the room with no tv, and oh yea the toilet does’t work and we end up manually filling the tank.</p>
<p>We finally reach the destination–pull into the apartment and there is a parking spot where I can put in the big van. Yea. </p>
<p>The icing on the cake…the key that the rental company sent doesn’t work in the door. Oh and it is Sunday afternoon and they are closed.</p>
<p>My daughter turned and looked and me and said, “Mom, what the hell did you do that was so bad, because you have really bad Karma.”</p>
<p>Sounds like a trip to remember mere!</p>
<p>Latetoschool, one horse belongs to my D. and the other to her friend. Both are equine majors at school and on equestrian team. Virginia Intermont has a huge equestrian facility and allows a limited number of students to board their personal horses there. Think the whole facility has over 100 horses. The barn does feeding and turn out, while owner is responsible for scheduling and being there for vet visits, farrier, and any special needs horse has, plus of course grooming and exercise. For school competition the students must ride school horses. </p>
<p>Both of these girls worked in a restaurant in Fairfax over the summer, boarded the horses in Woodbridge, and lived in Annandale. My D. said she was so happy to get back to school where everything she needed was within a 10 min drive. They did enjoy DC though and spent time in town and at ball games, etc.</p>
<p>Oh, forgot to mention on top of traveling with the horses they had her friend’s 80lb chow mix dog with them.</p>
<p>ucsd ucla dad, I know lots of people that would envy that mustang of yours!</p>
<p>We were in Ithaca this weekend – made a Target run and H’s car totally died in the parking lot. It only took 1 AAA call and jump, a substantial tip to the Sears AutoCenter dude, and $120 for a new battery plus installation and we were back on the road. I have to say that the Ithaca Target shopper are some of the nicest, most helpful people I’ve ever met. Dozens of people asked if they could help us – in the pouring rain of Saturday. Some even helped us push!</p>
<p>This goes back to the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend in 1974, but how about a 4 hour car ride from the eastern Detroit suburbs back to Ann Arbor in a blizzard.</p>
<p>Supposedly, that Monday was the 1st time ever that U of M cancelled classes due to weather. Very few people had made it back to campus, particularly those flying back.</p>
<p>UMDAD, I take it you made it. What were you all driving, I bet it wasn’t a mustang!</p>
<p>I’ve been looking for a place to put my S’s off to school story and this seems like the perfect place.</p>
<p>My S really wanted to go to a birthday party the night before he needed to be in his dorm. It would make life much easier if we got to his dorm before 4pm as the office was open. After 4 our only instructions (from his coach)were read the instructions on the door and follow them.</p>
<p>We are 10 hours away from his school so to be there before 4 we needed to be on the road at 5:30 am. Did I mention that we had to stop at my H’s parents on the way to drop off a saxophone? I went to bed early and my H set his alarm for 4:45 am. Off we go to bed, the car is packed, we just need to shower and go. I woke up at 6:09 am! My H, set the alarm for 4:45 pm! We were in the car and off at 6:25!</p>
<p>My H calls his Dad and he meets us off the interstate to drop off saxophone. My S is going to school in the UP of Michigan so those familiar with Michigan will understand. We made great time and made it from the Ohio border to the bridge in 4 1/2 hours. Of course we went 80 but we were feeling great, we made up some of the time that we over slept.</p>
<p>The UP is a different animal than the rest of Michigan. We had to stop once we got over the bridge for gas and potty stop. We get the gas and wait in line to pay. This gas station also sold smoked fish and jerky. Four people were in line in front of us and every one ordered smoked fish. We are in a big hurry and you can’t imagine how long is takes to pick out your smoked fish at the local gas station. How big of a piece of salmon would you like, 3 whitefish, would you like those wrapped together?</p>
<p>I have never passed so many cars, trucks, RV’s, boats and campers as I did that day.</p>
<p>We arrived at my S’s dorm at 3:57 pm. They locked the doors behind him.</p>
<p>deb922,</p>
<p>The Ohio line to the bridge in 4.5 hours is outstanding - I doubt that you were only going 80.</p>
<p>Did you happen to drive the Seney stretch in the UP where M-28 goes due east/west for about 20 miles? It has been described as the most boring stretch of highway in the United States.</p>
<p>UMDAD, I did 80 on I-75 and I’m sticking to that story! LOL!</p>
<p>Not only did we drive the Seney stretch twice but even got cell phone reception, sort of. Hard to believe that the 21st century has even made it to the UP.</p>