Souvenir Stitchery Charts

Yesterday Skip and I headed to Southwestern Ontario to visit my sister and brother-in-law. We got a late start leaving home for no particular reason, and when we finally did get on the road, we got a flat tire on the 407 just west of Lakeridge Road - only about 15 km from home. Before Skip could react after getting us safely over to the shoulder, I was reaching for my CAA Plus card and my cell phone. It took the person who answered my call almost 20 minutes to figure out where we were on a map - I mean, how hard is it to find "Kilometre 112.5 on Hwy 407 just west of Lakeridge Rd in Ajax"?  Then it took the towtruck almost an hour to get to us. It was a beautiful, sunny day and there were hardly any cars on the toll road. Sheesh! I have CAA Plus for which I  pay extra every years but it affords me a 100km tow instead of a 10km tow. We have had a couple of other 'adventures' with Skip's previous two cars while in south Texas and on the way to Florida a few years later.

When the towtruck got there we determined he couldn't just hook up the front end and tow us because it was a rear tire that had blown. He decided to put our spare tire on instead. He hauled out a couple of jacks from his truck but the soil on the shoulder was so soft, it just kept digging the jack into the ground rather than lifting Skip's car.

I suggested he put a floor mat under the jack to keep it from sinking so he got a floor mat and a bigger jack but he didn't have the right handle for it. He then asked to use our jack. It took us a couple of minutes to find Skip's virgin jack but did use the floor mat and finally got the tires swapped out.

By this time, Skip and I had decided to drive the car home and leave it there, loading my car up for the trip. He then called the tire place and ordered 2 new tires which should be in by Friday when we get home when he can take his car in and get them installed.

By the time we got back on the road three hours had lapsed from our initial departure time so we didn't get to my sister's in Petrolia until 5:30. Oh well, we weren't really on a tight schedule after all.

This morning we got up early-ish and after breakfast we got on the road by 9:30 to cross the St. Clair River on the Bluewater Bridge and head westward to Grand Rapids.

En route, when we arrived at Flint, we dipped down to Fenton MI so I could visit a stitchery shop called Stitches N Things.

I could have spent hours in there but chose to abbreviate my visit and only grabbed these 4 cross stitch charts as souvenirs:

Our plan tomorrow is to attend the LPGA event at a local golf course but the weather report will determine whether we attend in the morning or the afternoon.

In the meantime we are enjoying our cozy hotel room and are presently deciding where to go for supper.