After dinner--and hoping after the traffic had cleared--on July 3rd, we packed up the car to head off on our summer vacation. We planned to spend a few days with Damon's parents in Shell Beach before continuing south for some more family fun.
As Damon was loading suitcases into the car, the handle for our tailgate latch broke! Damon managed to get it open again with a screwdriver and tossed that into our glove compartment before we hit the road.
It's a good thing. He needed that screwdriver to open the tailgate and pull all those suitcases out in order to get to our spare tire when we had a complete blowout just about 15 minutes into the trip!
So, as cars whizzed past us on I-280, Damon jacked up the car and put on the spare tire.
The kids were cheery and patient and the bigger kids did a good job of keeping Holly calm while Damon changed the tire and I improved our visibility by waving our flashlight at on-coming traffic.
Once Damon got the tailgate all closed, we were unable to open it again when we reached his parent's house. We had to pull the suitcases out through the front! We feel grateful that we didn't have that problem while trying to fix the tire. After a little downtime at Damon's parents' he was able to find a paint can opener--you know, with a curved end--that was a little more helpful in grabbing the right spot for opening the tailgate. I never quite mastered it and Damon was on all tailgate duty for the duration of the trip.
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