Heading Home from PA

I don't know how we did it, but we fit 2 adults, 2 kids, 2 dogs and all our luggage in my Prius! But just barely. Here is the trunk:



We headed out Sunday before noon. Shan's husband noted that one of our tires were low. We thought it was due to the extra weight in the car - we did eat a lot while we were there. But, it turned out to be a leak from a nail or something. Within an hour or so of leaving, my car showed the low tire pressure symbol. I pulled over and checked. It was at 20 pounds where it should have been about 35 pounds. We tried to use Shan's iPhone and Siri to find a tire place but finally pulled in to a gas station to ask. They sent us to an auto parts store that didn't fix tires but told us where the Good Year shop was. I bought Fix a Flat to help get us there. At Good Year, I decided to just get 2 new tires, since I had been worrying about the tread on my tires. Probably over kill but when you have 1500 miles to drive with an important group of people and dogs, you want to be safe. It took about an hour but was worth it. The grand kids were pretty good but Gibby was tired and cranky so there were fits of crying.

I had the dogs in a crate and bed on the floor in the back seat and asked the boys not to throw things on them. What was I thinking? By the time we got to the tire place, Zooey was so stressed, she was panting and trying to get away. I had never seen her like that. So, we put the dogs in a bed on the floor in the front, taking up feet space for Shan. She was nice enough to let them share that small space with her and Zooey and Seymour calmed down.
Luckily they are small dogs!


The weather was dry and sunny so driving was pretty easy, but we only drove about 180 miles total. Still had 1201 miles to go when we stopped. We ended up at the Super 8 where I got us separate rooms. I was tired and needed some rest and the dogs appreciated a little time away from the rambunctious boys. Unfortunately, Shan's room was on the second floor with no elevator but we were on the first floor near the exit door - and a nice grassy field for the dogs to walk. And they didn't charge us extra for the dogs although it was posted that it cost $10 extra per pet. Seymour and Zooey both slept with me instead of in their bed and I sure didn't mind. This was the first bed I had slept in in over a week. I had been couch surfing in PA.

BTW, our gas mileage coming to PA was about 45.2 mpg for the first 2 tanks of gas and went up to 48.5 for the last 2 tanks. Coming back, so far it is about 43.5. Heavier load and wind coming back.



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