The name's Paul, and I love all gadgets that make my life easier.
Most memorable drive, well if I were to pick one, it would be on one of the most important days of any man's life, getting the heavily pregnant missus to the ward in time. It was an ordinary morning, I was working from home on the days leading up to the expected date, and was awoken to a grunting/coughing/choking sound. Now I know what you're thinking, but no it wasn't her, it was our pet border collie who'd swallowed a bit of string from the rope toy she was chewing. The wife was breathing quite heavily at that point, but she said she was fine so we agreed we had to take the dog to the vet. I say "We", but it was "me". The vets is only down the road, but by the time we got there, without going into detail, let's just say the dog wasn't very well on the journey and lost control of its bodily functions. Anyway's, I left the boot open for it to air a bit, and got the dog to the vet who checked her over. They said the incident in the car on the way over must've cleared up whatever it was she was choking on, so all great. Phew! Or so I thought. The mobile rang, and after a few seconds, I was about to hang up on what I thought was some pervert heavily breathing down the line, when I realised it was the missus, and was past the "early signs" of labour and wanting to go to the hospital. I made a quick call to the "in-laws" to check their availability for "dog sitting". Now, I said "sitting"!!!, although with what had happened in the boot that morning, I could've easily said something else, ahem. They also lived round the corner from us, so after dropping the dog off, I rush home, and gently put the missus in the passenger seat, and set off towards the hospital. "Deep breaths" I said before showing her what I mean. We were both inhaling deeply, before the wife, after almost throwing up, asked about the pungent aroma in the back of the car. We wound the windows down, and continued on the journey. I'd done this route many many times, but for the life of me, I don't know why I decide to do a left a the wrong roundabout. Whether it was the aroma in the car, or the carbon dioxide the wife was exhaling with her breathing exercises, I don't know, but what they say about heavily pregnant womon is true, I was called something I'd thought I'd never hear from my wife's pretty, tender little lips. Any other day I would've been deeply offended, but it shocked me to the point, I had to get my act together. I turned around, and finally remember the way. We made it to the hospital with no subsequent mis-haps, thank goodness. It would've made it more memorable if it had, but I think this was bad enough.
Needless to say, the mid-wives checked her over and said she was still "not ready for delivery", so they sent us home. I won't go into the details, but the journey home was just as bad. It was another few hours and several phone calls later to the "labour ward" before we could finally do the trip again, but I did managed to get the car cleaned prior to that journey.
It was a stressful day to say the least, but 30 hours after that, we were rewarded with, our first son. The pressures of that day just didn't matter after that. Any parent reading this would agree that you're lost in the magic and wonders of life at that moment, full of joy and happiness and nothing else matters.
My subsequent memorable drive was bringing my wife and son home a few days later where our life as parents started.
We have two boys now and have since had many more memorable journeys.
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), we've decided to just ignore it and follow the signs to Austria. Well, it turned out to be a mistake - in a way. We didn't get to the highway. Instead, we climbed from around 350 meters above sea level in a series of hairpins in a beautiful alpine valley up to a pass at about 1400 meters above sea level between some 2000+ meters hight mountains with snow on top (this was in summer). And then the drive back down on the other side. It was quite intensive (first time I've seen hairpins in a tunnel), but amazing, in a way. We got back to the highway almost four hours later than we would have, but I'd say it was still worth it, in a way. And then we caught a terrible storm near Wien - it was raining so hard we were going at about 40 kph max at highway, the wipers at max and still the windshield looked as if someone's just pouring water on it.
