Well, we made it to Florida from Ohio. It wasn't the expected 11-12 hours of driving, though. We clocked in at 16 hours! Let me tell you our story, skipping the horrible traffic in Cincinnati (since that's nothing exceptional). For reference (if you want to look it up on a map), we drove this path:

Columbus, OH on I-270/I-71 to Cincinnati, OH
Cincinnati, OH on I-71/I-75 to Louisville, KY
Louisville, KY on I-65 to Nashville, TN
Nashville, TN on I-65 to Birmingham, AL
Birmingham, AL on I-65 to Montgomery, AL
Montgomery, AL on I-65/state rds to Pensacola, FL

Okay, now that we're past that, let's get to the excitement:

We were about 10mi north of Birmingham when the car started wobbling on the road. As I decelerated, the steering was continuing to get more difficult. As I suspected: a flat tire. We lucked out in that it was not raining, but of course the flat tire was on driver's side when we pulled onto the shoulder ("berm" for the midwesterners), so I had to work on it while some *ahem* highly-respectable people whizzed by us at full speed in the rightmost lane, despite the other 3 lanes being clear.

We were about 1/4mi from the nearest exit, which had a Walmart Superstore (great for those breakdowns at 11:00pm), so I decided to inflate the tire and try making it to the parking lot where I could safely patch it up and continue the drive.

As I was inflating the tire, I could hear a hissing noise of the outgoing air competing with the incoming air. I hoped the tire would hold for enough time before going flat, again. I got it to 20psi (only a little over half of the recommended), and we got back on the road.

We made it right to the off-ramp before the tire went completely flat, again. Obviously, the tire was finished, so I got out and jacked-up the car to trade the wheel with the donut. Yay, we're almost ready to get back on the road! D'oh the rim is rusted in place! *kick* *kick* It doesn't budge. Hmm... *kick* *kick* The tire is taunting us.

This was as good of a time as any to make use of the roadside assistance included in our car insurance. (I'm glad I didn't drop coverage to just liability when I paid off the car.) I called the insurance and requested for a mechanic to come help us. He arrived about 30min later to Exit 187 on I-65 southbound. (I'll always remember that location.)

After several tries at kicking off or prying off the wheel and spraying the rim area with WD-40, he put the lugnuts on partway and told us to drive the car on the shoulder in hopes that the wheel would pop from the car. After that didn't work, he decided to call for a towtruck.

While he was on the phone, I made a last-ditch effort at getting the wheel off the car by driving most of the way down the off-ramp. That effort paid off! He swapped out the wheel, and we continued on our way -- at about 12:30am, or nearly our original planned destination time (if there wasn't a traffic jam in Cincinnati).

The journey still had 260mi left to it with a previously-used donut that was rated for 50mi lifetime total. At first, we had the hazard lights on and went at 50mph. At this rate, we would make it to Pensacola in more than 5 hours!

We stopped just south of Birmingham, and I checked the donut. Everything looked fine on it, minimal wear, great pressure, yadda yadda. Let's go 75mph the rest of the way!

4 hours and 3 coffees later, we made it to our destination!