Call me a Taxi

On Tuesday, a neighbor came by and asked if I'd drive her, her husband, and their 5 year old daughter to a neighboring city about an hour away from here. They would pay my gas and $30 for my time. Well shucks, who am I to pass up money, so I say yes. They just had to go down to pick up some money someone had for them, so I figured, leaving about 3:40ish in the afternoon, we'd be home by 6 or 6:30 pm easily. I got home just before 10:30 pm. First off, as we are driving down there, I changed lanes and suddenly felt my truck wobbling a bit... just a tiny bit, but enough to let me know something was wrong. I pulled over and sure enough, a very flat tire on the passenger side back.

No problem, I carry a spare...
1st problem: we discover that when I was hauling something awhile back, I took my tool box out of the back of the truck and never put it back, so I have no wheel wrench to remove the lug nuts. Solution: we flagged someone down and borrowed their wrench.
2nd problem: my spare tire is up underneath the truck and has been since the truck was new. It's a 1992, so that's 15 years that the spare has been there, and bolts are totally rusted... we can't get the spare free to use it. Solution: R got a ride in to the city we are traveling to, got the tire fixed and came back.

It was still daylight when we left, and not too cold... not so by the time we were back mobile. It was not only dark, but very cold and very windy. So we picked up their money, they bought a large pizza for all of us, then back to our city where they had some other errands to run, including grocery shopping. I also picked up a few things I needed at the grocery store. I was very happy to finally get home. I also was very happy for the $50 they gave me... and it all went into my gas tank that I had wanted to fill up but wasn't sure how I'd manage that :o)

Thursday, R came to my place and said he again had to go to that city, and would I drive him again. So off we went. This time an uneventful trip, though when he was getting back into the truck after doing his business, he found a knife blade beside the front passenger side tire. I sure was glad that didn't end up in my tire. It was a very cold day, but was also very sunny, so made for nice traveling. He bought me lunch and paid me the $50.

This evening, Saturday, R again came by and needed a ride to the same place... bought me dinner and gave me the $50 as usual. While there are some things I find irritating about this guy, he is basically a very nice person and I enjoy making the money :o). I enjoy driving too, so this works well for me.

On our way back Thursday afternoon, I stopped and took some photos to share with all of you.





Coming back into our city. Yes, I took this one through the windshield as I was driving... shhhh.