On motor clubs, cameras and little boys

Jacob and I were recently on our way to an apple orchard field trip when I suddenly heard a horrible noise coming from my car. We were on a little two lane road with absolutely no shoulder so I kept driving, slowly, until I came to an open area and pulled over, still not sure what was going on with my car. Well, it turns out that this is what was wrong with my car:

I'm a little embarassed that I didn't know what was wrong until I laid my eyes on that flatness, but I have honestly never had a flat tire before. Well, I promptly called Darin, because that was the logical thing to do, of course. He was only 40 minutes away at work. He could fix that tire lickety split, right? He kindly reminded me that we pay a small monthly fee for an auto club that would happily dispatch someone to come help me. Oh, yeah. Silly me. So after arranging for someone to come help me, I checked the car for anything Jake and I could play with or do while we waited for them to show up. I was afraid Jake would be upset that we were going to be late for his field trip, but he didn't seem to care at all. Bless him. Jake and I decided to explore the 20 feet of "wilderness" next to the road while we waited. After playing catch with a football for a few minutes, we entertained ourselves taking pictures. Here are some of my favorites:

Some of Jake's photographic contributions:

And here is Alex, originally from the Ukraine and now from the motor club, who could not speak English very well and took an hour and a half to find us, but had a winning smile and could change flat tires very well.

Jacob took a series of pictures of Alex's tools as well as the whole tire-changing process. He was quite interested in it all.

By the time we were on the road again, we had missed the field trip entirely, but decided to go to the orchard anyway. We played on the little playground there for about 5 minutes, bought a dozen apple cider doughnuts to take home, and jumped back in the car to head home. Sigh. So what am I grateful for? I am grateful I didn't get that flat tire on the freeway (that I had exited only moments before), but rather on a quiet country road. I am grateful it was a dry and warm day. I am thankful we pay that small fee to the auto club each month. I am grateful that Alex (finally) showed up with his cool tools and fixed everything up. I'm grateful that the camera was in the car and didn't even run out of batteries. I'm especially grateful that Jacob was with me. He kept me entertained and helped me maintain my patience as we waited. And waited. And waited. I was amazed at how happy he was sitting on the side of the road for so long just taking pictures, playing tic tac toe, playing catch, and eating fruit snacks with me. I suspect we had an even better time together there on the side of that road than if we had actually made it to the field trip. So, in a round about way, I am grateful we got that flat tire. Yes. Grateful.

Oh, yeah, and the donuts were pretty awesome.