Road Trip 2021 – Perspective is everything.
Thursday, July 16. Taking off from home with hubby on a road trip to SoCal. It’s my sister’s birthday (big one) on the 19th. We’re picking up my niece in Southern Oregon so she and her cat can ride down with us. She will stay at my sister’s and we will stay with my son and his family who live an hour away.
The trip to Southern Oregon takes four hours. It is uneventful and we arrive at her home on time. As we pull up to her house we see her coming outside to greet us. We place her suitcase in the trunk along with some extra bags. Then we put her cat (who is in a cat carrier) in the back seat. We take off on schedule but within minutes notice a warning pop up on the dash – “Coolant too hot — Stop Vehicle —Turn engine off.” What the heck? With good reason we are alarmed. Is it serious? Will we all die if we keep going? What’s going on here? We pull over to the side of the road, dutifully shut off the engine and strategize what to do next. We need to get to a Mercedes Dealer, but how far away is that and will the engine blow up getting there? Panic has set in. My husband googles the nearest Mercedes Dealer. Only 20 minutes from our current location. We have no choice. We have to risk it.
We notice that the air coming out of the vents is no longer air conditioned. The outside temperature is in the low 90’s. Not good for the furry animal in a cage in the back seat. My niece starts to worry.
We arrive safely at the dealership. The office is air conditioned. We breathe a collective sigh of relief. Our car is now somewhere where they will be able to fix it and we are experiencing heavenly cold air. My niece brings the cat inside with us. We wait patiently in the customer lounge where there is free coffee and ice cold water. My husband is talking to the service manager. He comes back to tell us that they are running diagnostics on the car. Another sigh of relief. We become optimistic, even joyful, believing that soon the car will be diagnosed, repaired and we will once more be on our way.
Two hours later we lose our optimism when we are told that they found nothing wrong with the car. They checked the thermostat and that was not the problem. They suggest we just continue on our way and if the engine blows up at least it’s still under warranty! (Can you believe they actually said that?)
With some trepidation and disbelief we left the dealership. No one spoke. Within a few short minutes the warning sign came on again. The air in the car became warm. Our spirits plummeted. My niece became stressed about her furry child in the warm car. The mood had quickly gone from hope against hope to depression and even desperation.
We were determined to believe the dealer that nothing was actually wrong with the car. Crossing our fingers and toes we soldiered on. We rolled down the windows allowing the warm air to blow on our faces, trying to imagine it was cooler than it was. My niece in the back seat said nothing. She felt trapped. She felt despair. She continued to worry about her cat. The cat was now panting.
Irritability had entered our car through the open windows. We were all grumpy. This was practically a brand new car! How does this happen? We had some air conditioning issues three weeks before our trip. My husband had taken the car in for service. They had it for 1 1/2 days. THEY FOUND NOTHING. After several days of driving, the air conditioning seemed to be working fine. I had suggested more than once that we take my car, a 2019 Jeep with no issues. We decided at the last minute to take the Mercedes. He wanted to show it off to our family. Needless to say, he now regretted that decision.
We managed to make it to Weed, CA and although we had only been on the road for a few hours, we knew we needed to make a plan for the rest of the trip, given our current situation. It was a small town with only a couple of hotels. The first one we went to was full. How could that be? It was a Thursday, not a weekend! We went to the only other place, a Comfort Inn up the street. We all held our breath. Yes, they had two rooms and they were near each other!
After getting my niece settled into her room we entered ours and tried to figure out a plan. At this point no one was in a good mood, especially not my husband. “This trip was a terrible idea. We should have flown. I suggest in the morning we take Lori home and then head home ourselves.” “That’s not an option,” I said quietly, trying not to anger him further. “Then I’ll drive back to Portland tonight, switch cars, then drive back here sometime early tomorrow.” “Another bad idea,” I carefully suggested. “That’s not a safe option.” Fortunately he agreed with me. Our minds were both racing. “Okay,” he said. “I know what we can do. We’ll take Lori home in the morning then drive back to Portland. We’ll spend the night and then Saturday morning we will head out again with your car. We’ll lose a day but we will have no more car trouble.” I thought about it. It made sense. It wasn’t what I wanted to do but it was all we could come up with. So I thought.
Then a new, slightly bold idea popped into my head. “I’ve got a crazy idea” “What?” “Lori has a fairly new car. It runs well. We could ask her if we could use it on our trip. We drive back to her place tomorrow morning then switch out cars and head out. We’ll only lose about three hours as opposed to an entire day.” After talking it over with my niece, she agreed and we set out the next morning.
On our trip one thing after another went wrong. “This is the trip from Hell,” my husband grumbled. More than once he and I argued. It was awful, especially having an audience in the back seat.
Then there was the time on the second day when I left my cell phone at a McDonald’s and we had to turn back, losing over an hour. It was never ending. My husband was stuck in the car with two women and a cat. He was not a happy traveler. I just kept trying to keep the peace. It wasn’t easy and most of the time it didn’t work.
We spent the second night (not in the budget) in Stockton, CA. It was a Best Western. I grew up hearing how you could always trust a Best Western Hotel. Well, this one was a dump, in a shady neighborhood. There were more reasons for us to complain. And we did.
We made it to my sister’s house on the third day. In order for us to leave my niece’s car with her we had my son come pick us up, an hour trip each way. We got to my son’s house after being in the car for 12 hours, 10 hours the previous day. We were done.
There were many things to complain about on this trip, which we did. There were more issues for my poor husband having to do with his real estate business that added fuel to his already roaring fire. I was so angry with him I wished him gone. All I was thinking about was how badly he was treating me, about his constant complaints and criticisms. It was almost unbearable.
After a day or two of being at my son’s house it hit me. Well, actually it was a comment my niece made to me about my husband’s behavior. How she understood it and didn’t blame him. What? I was ready to kill him and she understands him? Was I in the Twilight Zone?
After much reflecting and conversations with God, I saw this trip in a whole new light. The trip had actually been a blessing. Our car could have left us stranded out in the middle of nowhere, without cell service (and there were plenty of those areas we drove through in the Mercedes). The engine could have blown which would have blown our trip.
My lost cell phone was another blessing. My husband had called the McDonalds where I thought I had left it in the bathroom. The manager checked and said it wasn’t there. My panic was all too real, and frightening. Because of that phone call, a woman, who had spotted my phone in the parking lot, overheard the manager talk about a lost cell phone. She returned the phone to the manager who promptly called my husband back and said they had the phone. That was God’s grace.
So many of the things on this trip that appeared to be awful and such bad luck, all worked out. God was with us throughout. I just hadn’t noticed until I looked back. It’s a long way around to tell you that no matter what you are going through, and for some of you it is considerably worse than the problems we encountered, know this – God is with you for the duration. You are never alone. Look for tiny miracles along the way. Thank him for those. Feel his presence surrounding you, his love pouring out on you. Trust he will get you through this, because he will. No matter how frightened or messed up or panic stricken or worried or depressed or lonely or hopeless you may feel, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. God is always there. You need only reach out for him. He is always just a prayer away. God bless.