A HUGE Snafu...part 1

We took a road trip last week and headed up to South Dakota to go camping and see the sites. One of those being Mt. Rushmore...we had a great week. Absolutely perfect weather for tent camping- best ever for us! Everyone transitioned well into sleeping in the tent, we had very little melt downs and an over-all super fun time together. We even talked about hoping to get a pop up camper in the next year or so and doing more road trips to the east coast and maybe Florida. I will post pictures later this week of all the fun stuff we did.

We headed home Thursday morning- we got the van all loaded up and went to leave and couldn't find the car keys. My absent minded husband had rolled them up in the tent..which was now in the car-top carrier at the bottom. We needed to be leaving for the 8 hour trip home, so we used the spare car keys and asked my parents to unlock a back door for us. I should have known then, that the trip home was going to be tricky.

We camped in Custer State Park and roaming around the park at all times are wild buffalo. We learned a lot about them while there and got some good pictures. As we were winding our way out of the park we saw a male buffalo in the middle of the road. Just sauntering along, taking his time. I told Jeff to roll down the window cause I wanted to get a good picture. He did. As we were rolling up the window and slowing making our way past Mr. Buffalo he started to chase the van and I screamed "GO GO GO!!!!!" Jeff was able to get going pretty quick and the Buffalo gave up. We learned that Buffalo can run 55 MPH...so we knew we needed to haul it quick! This was another sign that our trip home was not going to be pleasant!

Here he is as we were trying to drive past.

The shot i got before he started running!

We drove for a couple hours- mostly in the middle of nowhere. Sadie had to go potty once and we stopped at a rest stop and made everyone try to go just in case. We were back in the car and on the road for about 30 more minutes- while I was reading my book, "How to listen to God" by Charles Stanley. We were going up a hill and all the sudden Jeff started slowing down. I looked up and said whats wrong, and he said I don't know but the car is not wanting to go up this hill and shift gears. So we pulled over...in.the.middle.of.nowhere. And we had no cell service. We both got out of the car- thankfully the kids didn't question too much of what was going on at this point. Jeff lifted the hood...and there was A LOT of smoke pouring out of there. He checked the oil- it was really low! Which I found odd because I just had the oil changed not too long before. There could have been a leak though. A nice young guy from Colorado pulled over and said he would take Jeff to a town a few miles away to get some more oil.

I knew Jeff had to go because we had no other choice- but the thought of being on the side of the road in a broken down van with 3 kids and no cell service made me FREAKED OUT! So I prayed...a lot...for like 30 minutes straight. We sat in the hot car with the doors locked...when I knew it would be close to time for Jeff to be back I opened my door for a few to let the breeze in. Finally they were back..the guy had to get to work, so he let Jeff out with the oil and took off. Jeff put the oil in and things seemed better, but we knew we needed to get it fixed, so we would go slow into the town of Lusk, Wyoming.

Everyone had to go potty so we went to the grocery store. While there Jeff asked the workers if they could recommend a mechanic because the one he got the oil from was less then stellar. We didn't have alot of choices, but I believe the Lord took us to the right one!

TO BE CONTINUED...