Bookmarks Festival Recap

Let's just say it was an eventful 48 hours...

Friday afternoon we began the 6 hour trip from Lilburn, Georgia to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. For the most part, it was a pretty calm trip. Traffic was bad, then it started to rain, not heavy rain, just a splattering of showers. When we were about an hour and a half from our destination, Jared got tired and asked if I wanted to drive. After about 30 minutes, I noticed the truck was acting weird. I felt a knocking on the front tire. I was in the fast lane, going about 75 MPH when I felt what could only be a flat tire. I got over 4 lanes and checked. We didn't have a flat tire, yet it seemed like we did. We pulled off of the highway and limped to a gas station. We discovered 2 of the lug nuts from the front driver's side tire were gone and the studs that attached them were gone as well. Luckily, we had made it to the outskirts of Charlotte, North Carolina. (I graduated from high school in Charlotte.) 

At 10:00 PM on a Friday night, we called a tow truck. At 1:00 AM Saturday morning it arrived. We found a mechanic shop close by and they towed us there. Unfortunately it was a gated shop, and the company wasn't allowed to leave us outside of a gate. It was a busy towing night, so the company told the tow driver to just dump us and get to the next tow. So we were unceremoniously dumped in the parking lot of a rental truck facility in a sketchy neighborhood. 

We had to call to get another tow, to take us to another mechanic. We found one in Winston-Salem that just struck me as the place we should go, unfortunately it was 71 miles away and our towing covered only 7 miles. 

As luck would have it, our original tow driver showed up, at 4:30 AM and agreed to take us the 71 miles to Rattle and Hum Automotive. We arrived arrived in Winston-Salem around 6:00 AM. We got an Uber to the house we were staying at and took a quick nap at 6:30. At 7:30 AM we were up and getting ready to go to the festival which started at 9:30 AM. 

The car repair place opened at 8:00 AM and the owner said there wasn't a mechanic onsite on Saturdays, but he would see if he could look at the truck. He had lots of other appointments before us and they closed at 2:00 PM, so he doubted he would get to it, but he would try. 

We got an Uber to the festival. It was raining, and well, I had lots of things that couldn't get wet. The Uber driver had another gig to get to so he dropped us off about 3 blocks from our tent site. We had to take all of our stuff in a wagon, covered with a garbage bag (I highly recommend getting the super large black contractor bags). We got all set up with a VERY limited setup. I got two new tablecloths for the event: a fire engine and a school bus. I didn't have anything fancy. Just books on stands, the Plinko game, and a fire truck. 

It continued to rain for the next 2 hours, but people poured in. LOTS of people. AMAZING people. People who were there for BOOKS! It was such an amazing festival. I met so many amazing people and sold a bunch of books. People and kids LOVED to play Plinko, even if it was to just win a bookmark or a sticker. 

When the rain stopped, so many more people showed up. Soon it was sweltering hot and humid with a happy cloudy blue sky. 

We got a call around 12:00 PM from the mechanic and he said that he could fix the truck, it would be done before 2:00 PM and we could go pick it up. The festival was a mile from the shop, so Jared got his steps in and walked to pick it up. Shout out again to Rattle and Hum Automotive. A place I would recommend 1,000,000 times over! 

The event ended at 5:00 PM. We packed everything up, went and got take out, and headed back to the house. Daxton had stayed there as there was no waking the kid once his head hit the pillow. We ate dinner and went to bed...at 8:00 PM. I woke up this morning at 8:30 AM. Best sleep I've had in a very long time!

Overall, at the beginning of the day I was planning on just going home and not going to the festival. I was so tired and everything just seemed stacked against us. I'm so glad we stayed. Such an amazing group of people. Such an amazing event!

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