Finally OBX after a mild adventure!

Today I have been waiting for all summer long! Today I drove the short 3 hours to the Outer Banks to our beach house for a 2 week vacation. No need to hurry this morning as we carefully packed the car and put the bikes on the bike rack... we would be there by 2pm if we left at 11.... So off we drove on the empty Rt 64 due east. No traffic as usual and we were speeding along at 75-80 chatting and looking forward to our time at the beach. We came upon a short stretch of road work and the scarified road surface had some bumps and dips. I slowed considerably, but the dips were a bit more than the bike rack could handle and POP...one strap let loose and I started to pull over and then I hit another dip and POP the other strap let loose and the bikes were hanging on by a wing and a prayer as I made an abrupt stop on barely a shoulder with deep sand because it was being worked on..... It wasn't particularly a safe place to stop but I had no choice. We got out of the car and looked at each other and said ...ok now what? So we emptied the car ( cooler, suitcases, roller blades, dry goods, wine and margarita glasses of course, my special pillow, etc etc etc.. ( ThankGod for my Vibe). Then we struggled to get the 2 bikes in the car and put all the other stuff on top of them... Well, it all fit except for the cooler. So I said... put the cooler in the passenger seat, Myron, you drive and I will pretzel myself around the cooler ( one bigggg cooler). Somehow I got into a position wrapped around the cooler and Myron started to drive... Now we had 2 hours yet to drive optimistic me said we could do it. But within 15 minutes, I was hurting all over.. My side was cramped, my feet were falling asleep, my bad shoulder was on fire and I still wanted to keep going. Oh and by the way... the cooler kept slamming into the gear shift and putting it in Neutral.... so I had to pull on the cooler crouched with my butt against the window.. a picture!!!! Myron wouldn't stand another minute and got off the highway for Tarboro hoping to find a bike shop so we could buy a new bike rack. ( Oh btw, I put the broken strapped bike rack on top of all the stuff in the car too!) We get off and find a Walmart and I unpretzel myself as Myron opens my door and I literally fall out... I run into Walmart and find one bike rack meant for children's bikes and buy it for 30.00... It is flimsy and weak but it can make it the rest of the way and I can then sit in the front seat. We take all the stuff out of the car, put the bikes on this flimsy bike rack and put all the stuff back in the car head out again. We get to our house 2 hours late..... but we head to Dirty Dicks Crab House and have a bottle of wine and Dungeness crabs and then walk the beach and all is terrific again... You got to laugh... Anna and Myron