March 22, 2007--Driving the wheels off the car

Today Erick drove the wheels off our car. Well, that's an exaggeration, because he really only drove off one of the wheels. We had noticed it making a funny noise back in December. It sounded like it was dragging something, or like it does when you drive through water. It wouldn't happen often, usually when going around a curve, but it's been getting steadily worse. Last night it was grinding something terrible. I was driving with four of the kids and Erick was driving the truck behind me. We had driven to church separately so he could pick up some lumber in the back of the truck for the chicken coop we are builidng. This morning he took off for work in the car. It was grinding really bad, and by the time he had reached the next small town on the highway it was starting to weave back and forth. He turned around and headed for home. Just as he turned into the drive the wheel completely ground off and rolled away. I'm glad it didn't happen when he was out on the highway! It was such a good little car. It's sad to see it go, because this was the car we've owned the longest out of any of our vehicles. We've had it for over four years. We bought it right before Rachel was born. In fact, the first time I drove it was on the way to my midwife appointment, and I went into labor with her that afternoon. It's been "my car". We paid $1200 for it and I think we got our money out of it.