Day One of Trip West
2003-08-20, 10:49 a.m.

I began my trip west at six in the morning on Saturday. All was going well until about two hours after my trip started.

At that point, one of my tires experienced a blow-out. Luckily it was on the passenger side, so I was not in danger of being hit by a speeding car while trying to change it and in the process dying on the side of the interstate in Pennsylvania.

So, I unpacked my trunk to get to the spare tire, only to find out that the spare was again flat. In my defense, I did air it up after the last incident but I had not thought about it in the year since.

I repacked my trunk, slipped my headphones on, listened to my Camp soundtrack and read a bit of Possession by A.S. Byatt while I waited for help to arrive.

Three and half hours and $176 of my hard-earned cash later and I was back on the road heading west. Big thanks to Dave the tow truck guy who was super nice.

Then the rain came. And it wasn�t just any rain�it was torrential rain. I had to slow down to 30 mph and I realized that I was never leaving Pennsylvania.

But then the sun came out and I was once again zooming down the interstate. And there I was happily driving down the road when the semi in front of me slammed on its brakes and I saw a white car flip over the concrete barrier and land on a car heading east on I-76.

Apparently, a semi had lost control and flipped and lost its load of lumbar all across the east and westbound lanes of I-76. So, I again was stuck. But my day was going better than the people whose cars were wrecked.

Thirteen and a half hours after I started from South Jersey, I ended up in Columbus, Ohio and had to stop for the night as I could not face anymore driving.

Day One of the journey was blissfully over.