Always Carry Spare Stroller Tires

The contents of this post happened in July 2010.

  I was very impressed by the Six Flags America theme park when we visited this past summer. The park was clean, the employees were friendly, and the other guests hardly laughed at all upon seeing someone lugging around a fully loaded double stroller missing its two rear wheels.

  As always, family trips are an adventure at our house. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to throw hours of  intense planning and preparation out the window. But sometimes, you do whatever it takes.

  So, when we planned a day trip to an amusement park with our 10-year old son, and two 3-year old daughters, we figured we should be prepared. We packed our big double stroller, capable of carrying two small children plus several weeks’ worth of supplies. We packed a few gallons of suntan lotion and swimming stuff for the water park. To save money, we packed a lunch in a cooler and planned on having it in the parking lot. We had coupons for drinks and online discounted tickets. We had our directions and maps printed out. We thought were ready for anything.

  Fate loves it when we think we are prepared.

  Turns out we should have planned on leaving at 3:00 a.m. That way, we may have actually left the house at 8:00 am. It’s kind of hard to keep kids focused when they are all hyped up on the knowledge that they are going to a theme park. You might think that would encourage them to get ready faster, if you’ve never had the slightest bit of experience with children at all.

  When we finally arrived, we decided that we might as well have lunch first, since of course, it was that late. We suited up for swimming stuff, then headed in. We packed all our stuff into the extra-large turbo deluxe stroller, and entered the park. There were no lines, and security gave us no trouble whatsoever. Things were looking up…for about five minutes.

  In the water park area, one of the back wheels on the stroller fell off. It melted or was stretched in the axle area or something. I’m no expert on stroller engineering, but I can’t help but think that it’s slightly possible that it may have had something to do with our 10-year old pushing all his weight on the back and popping wheelies with it.

  Because the stroller had all of our stuff in it, and because we had just gotten there, and because we were already so far into the park, I figured I would try to use the stroller anyway and just balance it on three wheels to make do. Apparently Fate took this sort of optimism and determination as a direct challenge. Not long after, the second rear wheel also fell off. Then one of the giant drinks we had just bought (after my wife waited in line for at least an hour) fell and spilled. Ring Luck doesn’t mess around.

  As I lugged the stroller back out of the park by lifting the back end and rolling it on its front two wheels, I was encouraged by how few people laughed directly in my face. It kept my spirits up enough so that I could actually see the humor in the “John Adams Carriage Repair” sign on display in the Colonial section of the park. During all this, my wife was in charge of keeping the kids happy and safe, which is no small task seeing as how they are magnetically attracted to danger.

  Eventually, I finally got the disabled stroller back to the car, and all of our stuff transferred into multiple diaper bags and backpacks. On my way back in, I got a tad more scrutiny from the security guards. Apparently it is much more suspicious for a single adult male to be carrying multiple diaper bags into the park with no children than it is for a family of five to be bringing in those exact same items. You’d think they would have remembered me from when I exited moments before but their vision was probably impaired at the time from all the tears streaming down their faces as they tried to hold in their laughter.

  After they were done with the X-rays and bag inspections and who knows what other secret background checks they did, I got a rental stroller and made it back to my family. The rest of the trip was great and we all had a really fun time, especially the girls because the new stroller had much easier access for them to be able to leap out of their seats unexpectedly at any given moment into crowds of strangers or in front of giant, smiling trains. This sort of thing gives parents the kind of adrenaline rush that you normally get from riding a roller coaster, but with no lines. Which is convenient, since as a parent of young children, you don’t get to ride as many roller coasters as you used to.

  So it turned out to be a great day, and we even learned something: 1. A cheerful attitude can turn a potentially miserable day into a great experience or at least give you a story to tell that will seem funny to you later; 2. A good plan will last up until the moment you first attempt to execute it, and most importantly; 3. Always carry at least 2 full-sized spare tires for your stroller.