June 1st

June 1

I wish I were a good cook. I am not. I love to eat – so cooking would be a handy skill to have, but I don’t. I tried to make breakfast with sausage, potatoes and eggs – one of my favorite camping breakfasts. The wind was once again a problem so I cooked it inside. Everything stuck to the pan and it was pretty much a soggy mess. Oh well life goes on. I cleaned up and Rick and Mark took the kids for a swim. I did a couple loads of laundry and got us all packed up to go – it was a race to be ready by checkout at 11:00 am, but the clock said 11:02 as I pulled out of our spot. I pulled into the parking lot and then brought clothes to the pool for the kids so they could get dressed and we could be on our way. We crossed into Texas about 3:00 or so. It was my first time in Texas – it was about what I expected a lot of open flat land with lots of sage brush and oil drills, mostly a lot of nothing but heat. We came into a small town called Andrews around 4:30 we were just getting in to where some buildings were coming into view when the RV started whining. Rick played around with accelerating and it got worse as he did so. We also smelled an awful buning smell. Rick was nervous it was the transmission and it was seizing up so he pulled off the road and took a look. Something was definitely burning. My heart dropped into my stomach. What in the world were we supposed to do. Rick decided he needed to pull off the road to a little safer area, we were kind of sticking out in the highway so he drove ahead a couple hundred yards to a big parking lot. We all got out while Rick investigated. He decided we needed a tow truck. I looked around and was hit with the thought, if this would have happened even ½ mile back we would have been on the highway surrounded by nothing but oil drills and sage brush – but as it was we were right across the street from a cemetery. There were lots of trees, and the sprinklers were on. I took the kids across the street and we wanderded up and down the cemetery streets looking at the dead people, or their graves anyway. We tried to find the funniest names, the oldest birth date and anyone that shared our birthdays. We found a Gale family, I wondered if we were related. The oldest person we saw was born in 1850 and the funniest names were the Hogg family and the Gross family. We played in the sprinklers and it was really quite pleasant with all the shade, a light breeze and the mist from the sprinklers. Meanwhile Rick was talking to the Good Sam people trying to get us a tow truck. They were really nice but not to helpful. They couldn’t find any shop open to tow us to. It was after 5:00 by then. Some guys in the building next where we were parked came over and talked to Rick. They suggested it may have just overheated and it could be ok to drive now that it had cooled down. Since the Good Sam people were getting us nowhere we decided to risk it and drive into town a bit more to find somewhere we could camp. About 2 blocks into town we passed a transmission shop with all it’s doors still open. We pulled in and Rick went it to talk to them while I took the kids to the covience store next door and let them choose a treat. They got soda or popcycles it was hot enough I only cringed a little at paying 99 cents for 1 popycle when I knew back home at Macey’s I could get a whole bag for that price. We sat in there for about 1 hour eating our treats while the mechanic came out and crawled under the Rv and took a look. His name was Juan and we instantly liked him. He seemed very professional, courteous and geniunell interested in helping us. Now I know you can never know for sure about mechanics but I got a good feeling about him. He thought the problem was the differential, it was missing a cap and had leaked out all the oil. He said best case scenario it would need a new seal, refilled with oil and a new gasket or something. Worst case the whole differential system would need replaced which could take weeks. This whole time in my head I knew everything was going to be ok and that we were being blessed and looked after to have the car break where it did and not in the middle of the desert in 115 degree weather. While my head knew all that the rest of by body didn’t . I was so stressed, and worried that my whole body was tense, my stomach was cramping and rolling and I was fighting tears with a smile pasted on my face for my kids. I must have told them 1000 times – this will be an adventure we remember. We took turns looking for things to be grateful for and the truth is it was easy to find them. Juan suggested we let him take the cover off and take a look at it in morning. He told us we could sleep in his parking lot. He didn’t really have a parking lot just a dirt patch along his patch with old broken down cars parked this way and that on what looked like every square inch around the shop. I asked if there was a Rv park in town, a restaurant or park or something we could entertain the kids with. He told us about an RV park right behind the chamber of commerce not 2 blocks for us, and 1 block behind that was a park with a little lake. He said it wouldn’t hurt to drive the Rv there so we did. The Rv park was about 8 spaces with hook up behind the chamber of commerce building. There were trees and it looked quite nice. I went in and ask about it and found out it was a service the city offered to travelers passing through. A free spot to sleep with electricity. She said, if there is an open spot go ahead and take it. Unfortunately there wasn’t any open spots so we went on to the park. The park was amazing. It had a nice little lake in the middle with ball parks, picnic areas and a huge playground surrounding it. The area hasn’t had rain in a long time so the lake was quite dried up but it was still pretty. I cooked some sloppy joes in the Rv while the kids played on the play ground. It was so hot I couldn’t stand to be over the stove in the Rv for long so as soon as the hamburger got warm enough not to be frozen anymore I called it good and took everything out on a picninc table and we ate. After dinner the kids played some more while Rick and Taylor played a pretty hard game of soccer. Rick came back sweating buckets and as red as a tomato – he apparently has to work pretty hard to keep up with taylor these days. I noticed an electrical outlet on a pavilion in the middle of the playgournd. Perfect I thought – I plugged in rick’s phone which is perpetually out of batteries. I knew we wouldn’t have easy access to electricity that night so I though we should charge what we could. About 9:00 we headed back because we wanted to get back to the shop before Juan left for the night at 9:30. We parked on the street and he came out and told us he would move a car so we could park on his property. We had to squeeze in between cars but we fit and the ground was nice and level. He even brought us an extension cord so we could plug in. Unfortunatley we kept tripping his breaker so we just unplugged and turned on the generator. With gas so expensive we hate to run it but it was like an oven in the RV.

We had a little talk with the kids about the problems and what we could do about it. The were pretty patient and didn’t get to upset. We of course talked about how much we had been blessed to break down in a town where we had the cemetery to wait in and then just a few block away we found a mechanic who was open late next to a convience store with an owner who wanted to help us. The Mechanic gave us a place to sleep and even offered us electicity. Within walking distance there was a wonderful park that we had a great time playing in. We talked about how we could pray and ask for help to fix our RV and be patient whle we waited for it. We decided to find a way to have fun and have an adventure we could foundly remember instead of thinking of it as a nightmare. We have been reading 1 nephi and found several parrels between Lehi’s families journey in the wilderness and our experience. The kids listened to scriptures and the discussion was insightful and more meaningful than it has ben vor a long time. Taylor suggested we could fast. Dallin jumped right onto that idea and we decided to fast the next day. All in all the whole break down experience has lead to a couple of great conversations, where the spirit was strong and a lesson was learned. At least by me.

After scriptures we all watched Old Yeller, our Texas movie, while the AC worked it magic. By the time the movie was done it was nice and cool. Ryan and Rachel were getting really tired and asked to turn off the movie so they could go to be. Begging to go to bed is a huge novelty at our house – so we knew they must be pretty beat. We made them finish the movie though. I had a really hard time sleeping. I was so worked up worrying about what I was going to do with 5 kids in this tiny town with no transportation and heat like you wouldn’t believe. Juan had told us it could be a week a more depending on if he could get parts if he had to replace the whole thing. I kept telling myself to calm down and rationallyI knew it wasn’t that big of a deal. But heat, fatigue, major thirst was getting to me. My stomach was in knots and I had to make frequent trips to the bathroom – not so fun in an RV. It was on one of those trips that I realized it was a lot cooler up front than back where our bed was. The vents were closed in the back and open up front. Once we opened them our bedroom cooled off quickly and I started to relax – unfortunately it was about 6 by that time. We decided to see if the Good Sam people could get us a rental car, something they had offered last night so we got up and started calling them. After being on hold and transferred numerous times we hung up and tried on our own. We weren’t successful. There were no rental cars in Andrews. So we gave up and I packed up some back packs to take back to the park for the day while Juan figured out the extent of our damage. The wind was blowing and it was actually a pleasant walk over to the park. Only a few blocks. We checked out the picnic area and let the kids feed the ducks a bit. We noticed that there were utility boxes with oulets about every 25 feet across the picnic area. Weird – what park just has outlets sticking up all over it for no apparent reason. We needed electicity though and there it was. So we plugged in phones, game boys etc and go all charged up. The kids played on the playground some more and about 12 we headed over to a table to eat lunch. Rick went back to check on the Rv while I cleaned up lunch. Rachel ran off down a little hill out of sight so I sent Ryan and Anna to bring her back. A few minutes later this man in a wheel chair yelled over asking if those were my kids. “oh no” I though. What now. I was straving and tired and stressed beyond belief and I was more thirsty than I think I ever remember being. “Yes I managed” They are playing in raw sewage he said. You better get them out and take them straight home and bathe them real good.” I got up andwalked over to where I could see them up to their knees and elbows in thick black sludge. The man kept yelling how it was raw sewage straight from the toilet and they would get sick if I didn’t hurry and bathe them. The tears were winning at this point. I was 1000 miles from home with no house, no car and no way to bathe them. I got them over to me and picked them up took them to the bathroom. A little one room stall with no door and an old sink. I stood them in the sink and scrubbed the muck off them the best I could. I lathered them up with soap and hoped it would be good enough. I had a clean pair of shorts for Ryan but nothing for the girls. While I was scrubbing them Rick walked in and told me Juan said he could fix it but it would take a couple of days. I took a few deep breathes and out loud I said, “Ok –we will handle it” inside I was sobbing. A few minutes later Rick said, I was just joking it will be ready to go in ½ an hour. Apparently there was pretty much no damage inside. So all he had to do was refill it with oil and replace the cap or something like that. What a horrible joke. We finished cleaning up and headed back. We sent the oldest four back to the One Stop convience store for a soda while we went to talk to Juan. The oil hadn’t arrived yet so we had to wait about 1 hour at One Stop but he said we should be good to go just check it often and then go get the gasket replaced when we get home. The owner of the One stop came and checked on us and asked if we were ok . I had told him my sob story the night before. He offered to help a couple times and told us to come find him if we needed anything. Everyone we met was extremely nice and genuinely helpful. We finally got back on the road around 2:00 – our little mishap set us back 24 hours but truthfully it was an amazing experience. We saw the tender mercies of the Lord and felt His protection. We drew on each other and the power of fasting and prayer. We realized that we truly are bessed beyond belief and little set backs can make life memorable or miserable depending on how you choose to view them. Later this evening Rick was talking to Anna and asked her what her favorite part of the trip was so far. With out blinking an eye she said, “Andrews”. The truth is, I agree.