Beautiful Fingerprints in a Crazy World

Oh, the best laid plans...

      Initially I was going on this trip with several of my best girl friends because we were all turning 30 during the same year.
      Initially this trip was narrowed to five people who had set aside the time and money to get "out of Dodge" and head for the mountains during the hottest part of the year and relax.
     "No kids, now boys" I said on the Facebook event.

Like this is all I took, ha!

     We had a menu, we had the mileage and gas all worked out, the sleeping arrangements were settled, everything was figured out, I was halfway packed, in my head at least. At the beginning of the summer I was supposed to be making two trips to the cabin this year and when the first fell through I just didn't worry because I was going with the ladies in August, my favorite time of the year up in the mountains. And then it happened...

     Incident 1- One of the ladies got an amazing job interview that was only possible in the days that we were going to be gone. One down.

     Incident 2- My best friend got a job in a new school district (yea for her!) so her new teacher training was in the middle of our vacation. We tried to reschedule but due to the fact they she was moving the next weekend she just couldn't make it work. Two down.

     Incident 3- One of the other ladies had a major car break down and just couldn't justify the trip with the major car repair looming on the financial horizon. That makes three strikes, your out.

     With all this, we decided, as a group, to cancel the event and try some other weekend as well as staying closer to home. But I wasn't giving up on spending my week in the mountains. I made sure my bestie from childhood, Falisha, was still up for it, we altered our plans slightly to fit our schedules the best, and we were ready to head out.

     Incident 4- Well this is where things got interesting. About 11:00 am we hop in the car and drive to a nearby town to pick up somethings we need. This put us back about an hour but we grabbed lunch too and got ready to head on our way. This is when I receive a phone call informing me that I had dropped my debit card last night and that it had been turned into my bank (thank the Lord!). I cancelled the card and decided to head on my way since I had the money for my trip in cash. I called Daniel and told him about the card and he agreed, I should just head on.

     Incident 5- We hit the highway and things were going great, we were talking, catching up, everything is fantastic! Then the car starts to slow down. I pull over, not too worried because something similar had happened about two months earlier but we could find nothing wrong after a few moments. We had no similar  trouble since that one incident. We gave the car a few minutes, called our husbands, and then tried to set out again. The car was no better. This is when I started to get a bit nervous. You see, Falisha is pregnant and it was really getting warm outside. And by really warm I mean that we had passed 100 degrees long ago.

See? Its fine. Right?

     Incident 6- I pull over again and we look at the engine, just to see if it was on fire, or something equally obvious. And then I call Adam, who is way more mechanically inclined than I have ever even dreamed of being, to see if he could offer advice or maybe help somehow. While we talked to him I tried to head to the nearest auto parts store so that...
     1) I would be closer to civilization,
     2) I might could get a part or something if I needed it, and
     3) Maybe someone there might know what was going on.
After Falisha mapped it we found that the nearest store was only 20 miles away, this is the point where I looked at the speedometer and realized we would be there in... about an hour. Adam suggests that I check the transmission fluid level to rule that out. That was its own adventure. Not the problem, so he says that he will head our way when he gets off work in about an hour.

     Incident 7- So after putting along for a few more miles I notice that the engine is getting hotter. I pull over as soon as I can and we end up at a picnic area, still in the middle of no where Texas, but that's better than making the problem worse by over heating the car. We send Adam as close an approximation of our location as we can, which was also a mini adventure, and I described what the car was doing to a coworker of his that was a mechanic. This gave him a pretty good idea of what he thought the problem was so then we just had to wait.

     Incident 8- A few moments later we realized all we had to drink between us was half a large cup of water, which I gave to the prego lady, of course. We ask Adam to bring us some water when he comes and figure we will be fine until then. And we sit... and it gets hotter. Then we get a phone call saying that my mechanic would be later than he thought, and since he was our source of more water I began to look for other solutions. It was 105 degrees out there and I was getting worried about Falisha being in that heat with no water. I look down the road and see a tall sign that indicates either there is a gas station at the nearest exit or there was a gas station there. I can't tell from where we are standing how good my odds are. It's about 3/4 a mile down the road which is no small feat in this heat.

What kind of a face do you
make in a hitch hiking
selfie? I was just hoping
it wasn't the last picture
of me on earth.

     Incident 9- So I head out for the gas station, walking on the narrow strip that counts a the "shoulder" in these parts. Some kind of weird grasshoppers keep flying at me. To avoid them I would have to be on the highway its self. About a 1/4 of a mile down the road an 18-wheeler loses some of its tire and sprays the shoulder just in from of me with high velocity rubber bits but I took a deep breath, began to pray, and kept going. I began to notice several armadillo bits over a long stretch of the road and at first I thought "Wow, there are a bunch of those around here" then it occurred to me that getting hit at 75 mph might spread an armadillo over 1/2 a mile. Ugggg!

     Incident 10- About this point I reach the exit ramp, that leads to the bridge, that I have to cross to get to the gas station, that I am praying is there. And here is where the old Cadillac exits, stops, and backs towards me. I am trying to figure out how I am going to tell who ever is in this car that I would prefer to walk than be murdered by a stranger when I come level with the window. The voice of a older man says, "You nee' a ride? It' too hot to be walkin' out here." The gruff Texas accent and the fact that I think that I could either take this old man or break off his car door leads me to accept his offer. He takes me to the gas station (which does exist!) and then back to Falisha, who was starting to really feel the effects of the heat and minor dehydration.

     Falisha told me she was praying that the next car that came along would have someone in it who would give her some water and was working up the courage to just walk up to the next car and ask when an old Cadillac pulls up and I hop out with 4 liters of ice cold water and a bag of ice! The Lord will provide!

     Adam arrives about 20 min later, bringing more water and a DP (for me), and saves the day by taking my entire exhaust system apart, putting it back together, and managing to bust up my catalytic converter, which was clogged, just enough to get it to drive to a mechanic in the area that I know and trust. It only takes him two hours to do all that. I think he is amazing! He follows us part of the way home and my friends hubby meets us a little further down the road and follows us the rest of the way. We drop off the car and pick up Pa's (my dad) truck to try again tomorrow.

     As I am trying to process the day I begin to wonder if this trip is an exercise in futility or a test of my perseverance, patience, and faith in God. As I tell my Dad about the day he points out how much worse it could have been. I know he is right but I feel to salt/sweat encrusted to really take it in. I headed for my in-laws house to get a good nights sleep. I was looking forward to one last kiss from my kiddos before we attempt round two in the morning  but I was feeling pretty grumpy. Just when I was the most discouraged I got the sweetest text from Falisha. It reads:
          "Let's not get discouraged about today. I think we will be okay. Tomorrow is a new blessing. :) I can't wait to travel with you!" 
   

All in one piece!

     I almost cried, well, I would have if there had been any water in my body to cry. It was just what I needed to hear. When I look back at that adventure...
          ...spending 5 hours, on the hottest day of the year, sitting outside with a pregnant woman, hiking up the highway, hitch hiking with a random old man...
     ...in all of the craziness I find Gods fingerprints. Not just the incident with the water, the fact that we were still so close to home, the fact that we made it to an exit with shade, the fact that a clogged catalytic converter was my only problem so I could get it back into town, all these things remind me:
    "Look to the Lord for help in everything that you do and you will be successful" Proverbs 16:3.

This is totally worth every
minute of that day.

     Well, we made it to the mountains, the next day, in one piece, without further incident, and it was as lovely, and peaceful, and as beautiful a vacation as I could have ever asked for.
      I tell you all this not to complain about that crazy day, though I have done some of that, but to encourage you to look at your crazy days for those beautiful fingerprints. Sometimes they are the amazing timing of a friends text, sometimes they are your insane hitch hiking friend hopping out of a Cadillac with bottles of water, whichever it is, be aware of the tiny miracles that make up life.