Thanksgiving = Car Trouble ... Again

This is a post that I meant to write a while back but never did. Now I can tell the story in a written on-the-record format:

Thanksgiving Day was planned to a tee. We would start at my grandma's house at around noon, then hit Jeremy and Amanda's around 2:00 p.m. Following that, we were going to the in-laws' house for dinner and a movie. Should have been easy. My grandma's tendency to change plans at the last minute combined with my impatience would prove traveling from point A to point B to point C more difficult than I possibly could have imagined. I get a call that my grandma isn't having Thanksgiving until 2:00 p.m. (Red Flag! Plans are changing...) We overslept, not waking until 10:30 or so. We leave at noon anyway, and get stuck behind the slowest drivers in the Northern Hemisphere (20 mph in a 45 mph zone). Driving on a 2-lane highway, passing was not really an option as the roads were curvy. We finally hit a nice straight stretch where I could see far enough to ensure safe passing. No traffic was coming. I begin to accelerate to pass the old bitties when suddenly WAAAAHHHH... KLUNK KER CHUNK! The timing belt had come loose and the engine died. Here I am in the opposite lane decelerating quickly as the old bitties pass me (presumably laughing, but I'm unsure as my stripped dignity wouldn't allow me to check). The car was parked in somebody's driveway for a day and a half until Ryan and I went to pick it up in AAA's rollback truck. After grandma's, five of us rode back to Evansville in a little Ford Ranger truck. It sucked because it eliminated the possibility to visit our second destination: Jeremy and Amanda's. I just wanted to sleep.

Sorry for the painstakingly long list of minute details, just wanted to make sure I got most of the story in there.