Ahhh, the Unpredictability of Road Trips

Day 1

            So, I had everyone prepped and ready for our 20-hour marathon drive from Washington State to Granby, CO where we had two nights reserved in a 2-bedroom suite.  We were psyched and ready to go. In order to make the 20-hour journey by car more bearable, we left at 9:30 p.m. This we thought, would let everyone except the driver sleep through about half of the drive time. We packed up all six of us and our two canine friends and set out.

            The first 15 hours of the trip went as planned. The kids slept off and on. The dogs behaved themselves. We stopped once in a while for a bathroom break and to fill our water bottles. My husband and I traded off driving every 3-4 hours. We had traveled through some beautiful scenery in Utah and Wyoming. It was great! And then, it happened, the first obstacle on our journey.

Driving up a mountain, the care began to really work hard. By the time we reached the top, the battery light came on and did not shut off. It seemed that the electrical system was shutting down. We pulled over on a roadside pullout. When my husband opened up the hood to check the engine, we saw water gushing out from under the van. Soooo not good! Fortunately, we were in Colorado on the top of a mountain where there happened to be woods for the kids to wander a ways into in order to answer nature’s call. Because, of course, the children need to go to the bathroom right at this moment. All of the kids handed their water bottles over to Daddy which he then emptied into the reservoir of the engine, and we started off again. We prayed together as a family that God would be with us, keep us safe, and help us find a solution to our car needs.

As we now headed down the mountain, we spotted a pond which was fed by a stream being fed into by snow melt.  There was a little bit of a water fall effect happening where we decided to fill up the water bottles again and finish filling up the water reservoir of the engine. The kids and I trudged back through the field until we came to the source of the water, filled up the bottles and returned them to my husband who then poured the crisp fresh water into the reservoir.  God had provided! We found clean water for the van and enough to fill it up. We had fun throwing some snowballs around while we waited, and we were able to make it into our rooms by 9:30 that night by driving slowly and using nothing in the car that needed electricity. We hardly even needed to use the headlights due to the long summer days.

Our 20-hour trip had turned into 24 hours and ended up being an adventure. I’m sure it is a day that my children will never forget.  They also had wonderful attitudes which helped immensely during this unpredictable moment on Day 1 of our road trip.