Eragon: A Man and His Friends

Years ago, my children and I had to make a long drive home from my mother’s wedding in Savannah, Georgia without my husband. It was the third long distance driving trip I’d made in under three weeks, and I was sick of the highway. In less than a month, my family and I attended three weddings on the East Coast. I logged almost two thousand miles on my car from Fairfax, VA, down to Charleston, SC then Savannah, GA, and back up to Bucks County, PA (north of Philadelphia), and back to Virginia.

Anyway, after a wonderful weekend of walking through historic Savannah and attending multiple wedding events, we left on a Sunday morning at 5:30 am and headed home. I knew it would take ten hours because I was driving by myself. My husband had left a day early to attend yet another wedding in Annapolis, MD. As soon as I had my coffee and we hit the highway, I put on our current audio book. Since the newest Christopher Paolini book Inheritance (the fourth–and long awaited–book in the Eragon series) had just been released, we’d decided to re-read (in this case  re-listen to) the first three books before reading the fourth.

Eight hours later, my children and I were halfway through Eldest  (book 2) and I started mentally complaining. I was tired, had hit a ton of traffic in Virginia, and was sick of Eragon (the hero dragonrider) and his friends. No matter what was happening–backstory, action, narrative–all the reader/listener heard was introductions to Eragon’s buddies. For pages (minutes) upon pages (minutes), we met mentors, dragons, dragon riders, a love interest, a lover lost, an elf queen, dwarves and even farmers. Besides the constant getting to know each other, everyone had a strange name that was impossible to remember while driving.

Finally, I blurted out “I can’t believe Eragon has so many friends!”

To which my daughter replied, “Mommy, you can never have too many friends.

Whatever.

As I sulked, the traffic around Richmond got heavier and heavier. I decided to bail off I-95 and get onto the I-295 beltway. I was two and a half hours from home, and I couldn’t wait to get out of the car. As I rounded the city, Eragon met yet another three people and I wanted to scream–until I heard a horrible POP. My right rear tire had blown. Luckily, I was in the right lane and pulled off immediately.

I got out and checked the damage, only to see the tire in pieces. It looked like it had blown apart from the inside. As the cars whizzed by at 90+ mph, I checked my watch, and my heart sunk. It was 2:30 pm on a Sunday afternoon. Which meant I not only had to get the spare on, I had to find a nearby tire place to get a new tire and possibly a new rim by 5 pm. Then there was the fact it would be getting dark soon. I could go maybe 20 miles on the spare, and I was in the middle of Nowhere, VA. So I called AAA, then my husband who’d just gotten home to Fairfax himself.

My husband immediately wanted to drive down and solve the problem. But I knew there wasn’t time. He was 2 1/2 hours away without traffic. And since it was a Sunday, there was TONS of traffic. So by the time he got there, the tire places would be closed anyway. That meant I was on my own.

Luckily, since I had children in the car, AAA put me first on the list and my first friend arrived within minutes. And yes, I called AAA. I know how to change a spare, but I couldn’t get the lug nuts off. Besides, I needed to know I wasn’t alone.

The young man who came couldn’t have been more helpful. In the meantime, my husband and AAA (by phone) worked out the best place for me to get a tire and maybe a rim if I needed it. Since the only place was 16 miles away, and I had to get back onto the Interstate to get there, the young man from AAA not only changed my tire, he followed me on the highway with his flashers blinking. But I couldn’t go over 40 mph on the spare, and the speed limit is 45 mph. So the young man notified the local police that I’d be on the road for 14 miles. Like I said, he couldn’t have been more helpful.

In the meantime, I was on the phone (thank God for cellphones!!!) with my second friend, the man from the AAA hotline. He wouldn’t hang up until I reached the tire shop safely. And when I did, he called the tire shop to make sure everything was set.

My third set of friends came from the tire shop. Two gruff-looking men, probably ready to go home since it was almost closing time, had a tire ready and waiting. They also had sodas for the children and a pot of freshly brewed coffee for me. And their bathroom, while not fancy, was clean with hot water. These two men had my new tire mounted and back on the car in under thirty minutes. To say I was grateful would be a huge understatement.

Once back on the road, I called my husband again. It was now 4 pm, and I knew I wouldn’t get home until 6:30 pm at the earliest. He’d also mentioned my adventure on Facebook, and that one of my neighbors, who I don’t know that well, had just dropped off a hot dinner so we’d have something to eat once we got home.

As I drove home in the dark, listening to the book, I had a new respect for Eragon, his friends, and the author. Eragon had a Tolkein-sized task ahead of him, and he needed all the help he could get. Too bad it took a tire emergency to teach me what I should have known. You can never have too many friends. (On a side note, this is when I decided to start writing my Writer Prepper Blog Series which will resume next month!)