Going to a Pentatonix Concert - Part 2 - On Our Way

Because we live in the middle of nowhere. Okay, wait. We live in the middle of a cornfield. The cornfield is in the middle of nowhere.

Anyway, because we live in the middle of nowhere, we had to DRIVE to a place where Pentatonix will deign to perform.

We’re pretty much equal distances from Columbus, Ohio and Indianapolis, Indiana. But wait, this decision was actually pretty easy because the lovely Julie and her lovely daughter live in in Indianapolis and they wanted to see Pentatonix too (or, they were willing to go to the concert if it meant we’d drive down to see them…) So we got tickets back in May and made plans.

As the date neared, Julie and I figured out the logistics. She’d get home from work at 5. Her daughter would get home from school (school starts EARLY in Indy) at about 4:15. It takes about three hours to drive to Indy…in decently flowing traffic.

Alyssa and I left at noon because, duh, we know that traffic on I69 in Indiana does NOT flow decently.

Nope. It stops and it goes. It has lane shift after lane shift. Let me tell you, if I had to see one more orange barrel or orange sign warning of construction ahead I might have had to bring out the big bad words. Alyssa is fourteen. She could have handled it. And, as she reminds me, she rides the bus…dun dun dun.

At one point on the trip down to Indy on Thursday afternoon, the interstate highway became a parking lot. I literally turned my car off.

See, let me back up and remind everyone that I’ve had a bit of trouble with my stupid car. It’s a 2012 Chevy Equinox. I love most things about it. Except I don’t like that when it idles it can sometimes ding at me three times and then shows a warning light that there is reduced engine power. It basically means I can’t drive much over 40 MPH. It sucks. My husband assures me it doesn’t mean anything. He told me several times before this trip that the car was fine.

Okay.

It actually did run fine the entire drive down.

The drive home…wasn’t so great. We were three miles from Julie’s house on Friday morning. We were waiting at a stoplight to turn left and got to McD’s. I was stupidly just sitting there letting the car idle while we waited for the light to turn green.

And yes, you guessed it, REDUCED ENGINE POWER.

Damn it.

We limped over to McD’s. We parked the car. We turned it off.

The first time my stupid car did this was in Bowling Green while we were waiting for Lyss to perform in a choir.

We went in and ordered food. My stomach was in knots knowing I had to drive 465 and 69 on a Friday morning during morning rush hour to get home. I bought two breakfast burritos anyway. I stashed them in my purse knowing I’d want them when we were out of Indy and imminent danger of being stranded on the side of the highway.

Damn it!

When we left McD’s I started the car. In the past, the engine thing resets after ten or so seconds. Supposedly. It didn’t do that the time before (but it did fix itself in Bowling Green) so I figured we’d see.

It worked! Yay. I called Tom, told him the car was being stupid but that it had reset and we were heading home.

The plan was for me to use my left foot to brake and rev the engine anytime we had to stop.

We started and managed to hit the lights with very little stopping. Go us!!

We got on 465 and…two exits from where we got on they were cleaning up a crash. The right lane was closed. OMG! For freaking real? Yes, of course for real. We drove approximately eleven miles per hour for about six miles. My left leg was starting to cramp. Lefty isn’t used to doing so much work. Righty would have been fine with all the braking but she was busy revving the damned engine to keep the engine power at optimum levels.

Finally, FINALLY we passed the crash site (I hope no one was hurt…seriously, I’m not a monster) and we got up to 60. Lefty could rest.

The nice thing about 465 is that there are signs that tell you how far to your exit in miles and minutes. The first such sign told us that the exit for 69 was 11 miles away. It was also 23 minutes away. Which meant traffic was slowing down. Oh for the love of God! I warned Lefty to get ready.

And for the next, oh, eleven miles, we were in stop and go traffic about four lanes wide.

But finally the exit for 69 showed up. We made our way onto 69 and, get this, it was smooth sailing (am I mixing my metaphors here?) the rest of the way home. Lefty was happy to be done braking. Except for the fact that I still don’t trust my stupid car (though I did thank her for getting us home safely, like I said, I’m not a monster) and so if I’m at a stoplight or stop sign here at home, I’m still revving the engine. I thought when we bought this car we were beyond driving junkers. I guess I thought wrong.