Picking up Pallets

Well if a 12 1/2 hour drive (14 hours when you're taking the route to bypass all the steep hilly terrain) isn't too much to squeeze into one day, why not add a side trip along the route and head East to Indianapolis, Indiana to pick up 3 pallets of wood flooring (~3,500 sf) for the first floor?  At least that was the plan.  What wasn't in the plan was blowing out a tire on the trailer in the middle of nowhere in southern Illinois AFTER all the pallets of wood flooring were loaded!  But hey, what's the saying, "the best-laid plans..."

Brian and his friend Dave, who generously offered to go along this trip to help, left in the still dark hours of the morning, bound for Indianapolis.  They got through Chicago before traffic became an issue and made it to the loading docks in good time.  So far so good.  It wasn't until they were well into Illinois heading south toward Cairo, that they realized a tire had blown on the trailer  (which now was really loaded with all of the wood pallets stacked inside). They made it to the next exit where fortunately they found a couple of options for new tires.  (For those of you who make that drive through southern Illinois, you realize this was a blessing).

The decision was made to go ahead and buy 4 new tires, but the first place they went to only had 2 tires and 2 wheels (already mounted and in a larger wheel size), the next store had 3 wheels and 4 tires of the same size as the first store, so they bought all 4 tires and 3 wheels at the 2nd store, but still needed one more wheel,  so they went back to the first store and bought the 4th wheel.  Now all of the wheels had to be mounted and balanced and installed.  Four hours later they are back on the road.  All I can say is I am so thankful the guys handled it relatively well, no one was hurt and really thankful I was left behind on this particular trip! (I was still working full time).

At the end of the very l o n g day, they pulled up that driveway to find the house open and all of the lights on.  A welcome sight for 2 weary travelers.  Our daughter Kris and a couple of the kids had driven down ahead of their arrival to help with the weekend unloading.  Kristen took great care of the guys by cooking amazing meals for them and lending a hand wherever needed. All in all, it was another successful trip on the books.

There is a great blessing in the journey as God continually provides for all of our needs, according to His perfect plan and timing...and not ours.  There is great comfort and peace knowing that even when we muddle things up, God has the reigns and it's His path we are on. Because of that, we will be okay.

The larger tires made the trailer ride better and gave the trailer a better load capacity for future hauling. Now we wouldn't have to worry about whether or not the tires would make it on future loads or so we hope.

I am looking forward to the wood floors going down, but that won't be for a while. There is a lot to get done before the flooring goes down, but it's there ready and waiting when the time is right.  At least the wood should be well acclimated by the time it's installed,  and that's a good thing.