Why can’t we ever have an uneventful road trip?

We woke up yesterday and wanted to watch Harry Potter 7. We decided to drive to the nearest movie theater to watch said movie. The nearest theater is 3 hours away in South Africa. We suffered through slow Siteki internet, as usual, to find directions. We left Mabuda. We came back to Mabuda. We got all the stuff we forgot and left Mabuda again. We got lost but said that we planned the detour. We drove an hour out of our way. We found the road that we were supposed to be on. It was a dirt road. The Gracia doesn’t like dirt roads. We took another “detour”. We made it to the border post. We got a bad border post official. We couldn’t get into South Africa. We got a good border post official. We can stay in South Africa as long as we want now. We followed a cow through the border gate. We got stuck behind a wedding processional. They were swerving through both lanes of the highway. We passed them. They weren’t happy. We followed another cow on the highway. We turned toward Nelspruit onto a dirt road. Did I mention the Gracia doesn’t like dirt roads? We turned back to the paved road. We took another “detour”. We went another half hour out of our way. We got to the movie theater. We were 3 hours early. We left the movie theater. We called a backpacker’s hostel to find a place to sleep. They didn’t answer. We called again. They still didn’t answer. We called again. Ditto. We called another backpacker’s hostel. They also didn’t answer. We called again. Take a guess at the result. We drove to the first backpacker. My computer battery died. It had the directions on it. We took a wrong turn. We justified it by looking at the nearby restaurants. We found the correct road. The backpacker’s hostel did indeed exist. We got the last rooms they had. It was more expensive than we wanted to pay. We found another hostel. The Pakistani that I talked to scared me. We decided to go with the first hostel. We went to watch HARRY POTTER 7! The air conditioning in the theater was out. We watched it anyway. Before the movie started we quickly recapped 6000 pages of Harry Potter for Eric. Eric was still confused the majority of the movie. We left the theater very happy. We gorged ourselves on pizza. We went back to the expensive backpackers. We tried to stay up late. We only made it to 10pm. Ben wasn’t so lucky. He had an in-depth conversation with a Zimbabwean with aspirations to be an international businessman/televangelist. For two hours. He went to bed. Grace told him off in her sleep. We got up in the morning. Apparently there was a huge thunderstorm the night before. I slept through it. As usual. I wore a hat because I didn’t want to shower. I went to breakfast. I didn’t make it to the kitchen. The Zimbabwean international businessman/televangelist thought I was Ben. I didn’t realize this until it was too late. Blasted hat. An hour later I ate toast. We left before I had time to brush my teeth. We backed out of the parking lot. We realized we had a flat tire. With one of our “new” tires. I brushed my teeth with my newfound time. We put the doughnut tire on. It gets a lot of use recently. We went to get Fix-A-Flat. It doesn’t work for tires that are off the rim. Our tire was off the rim. We bought it anyway. We went to a tire store to get the tire fixed. It was closed. We went to another tire store. It was also closed. It was Sunday. Everything is closed on Sunday. All the traffic lights were out. The storm apparently knocked out all of the electricity. We went to a gas station to pump up the tire. We worked for a half hour to get the tire back on rim. It didn’t work. We went to another gas station to try the same tactics for getting the tire on the rim. Why we thought that would work is beyond me. We found another tire repair store. It is open 24/7. It was closed. Remember the electricity issue? We went back to the second gas station to try to get the tire on the rim. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It worked this time. We were happy. We pumped up the tire. It still didn’t hold air. We had a mini meltdown. We went to McDonald’s. We were happy again. We went to the grocery store. It was closed. Still no electricity. We tried the Fix-A-Flat. It didn’t work. We put the doughnut tire back on. Did I mention how much use it gets? We decided to drive back to Swaziland. On the doughnut tire. Ironically, the doughnut tire is the most reliable tire we have. We tried a new “shortcut” back to Swaziland. It wasn’t a shortcut. We turned around and tried another shortcut. It was a shortcut. We got to the border gate. We had a good border gate official. We were through the gate in 5 minutes. No cows blocking our entrance in to the country this time. We got pulled over at a traffic stop. Eric said he was a doctor and they let us go right through. We got back to Siteki. All tires were still intact. Except our “new” one. We passed the place that sold us the tire. We weren’t happy with them. We went back. We asked for a new tire. They actually gave us one. We were happy with them. We saw a small child riding in the back of a truck. There were 8 goats in the truck with him. Welcome home.

-Brad