Having left our hotel in Wilmington, we were headed on our way through the Ohio countryside. We had decided that our stop during this drive would be in Columbus, Indiana because of the movie Columbus.

This less-famous Columbus is known for it’s modern architecture and public art works, a number of them being National Historic Landmarks.

We were trying to find parking near the library but the car park was completely full, so we drove onto 6th street to find some street parking. As I pulled up to the curb there was a big BANG and I wondered where it had come from. Well.. it turns out I somehow managed to burst the tyre by hitting the curb!

We were lucky that a gardener from the Inn at Irwin Gardens was working nearby and came to our assistance. While my husband changed the spare I called the car hire company to work out what we could do.

I was surprised at how helpful they were, however they first told us that we needed to return the car to a nearby depot and switch vehicles but there would only be small cars available. We still had many weeks ahead of us and were very happy with the size car we had so I asked them to organise a new tyre locally.

After a bit of searching they gave me the details of a local mechanic who could replace the tyre. At this point we had no idea how long it would take or if we would have to change plans and stay overnight..

With the spare tyre on and directions from the very helpful gardener, we carefully drove a few blocks over to the mechanic and waited in their office while they sorted out the replacement. We were expecting to wait here for ages and were annoyed that we wouldn’t get to explore Columbus. However we couldn’t be more wrong!

The mechanics were super friendly and got our car checked out right away. Then a lady came in to get her car repaired because she hit a racoon. To say she was a character would be an understatement! She could not believe we were from Australia and was beside herself that we were there, she even put her friend on speakerphone to say hello. We talked about travel and work while the mechanics came in and out to update us on our vehicles.

Within an hour the tyre was all fixed, and we just had to call the hire car company for them to pay.. which ended up taking 30 minutes on hold but by that point we were just happy that we were going to be back on the road that afternoon!

Finally it was all sorted and we said goodbye to everyone we had met and headed back into town. For something that could have thrown a huge spanner in the works, it ended up being a pretty funny adventure.

We managed to grab a late lunch at around 2 pm and then headed for a stroll around the city. We saw so many locations from the movie which was awesome, and the ladies in the Visitors Centre were very helpful by giving us a map and suggestions. While we didn’t get to do everything that we wanted, we still got to take in a lot of the scenery of Columbus before heading on our way to Louisville.

Have you been somewhere because of a movie?