Finally we were ready and on the road. We had been packing up since four in the morning. It is so hard to get ready to leave your old homestead, family, and friends, but sometimes it has to be done against our wills for our good. We were helping my dad’s sister, her husband, and their two small children-- Ben, age: 4, and Bethany, age: 1. They are both very sweet kids but a challenge at times. They lived in Texas, and we were moving them to Tennessee, "our state". In fact they were moving just across the road from us in my grandparents’ house. My grandparents were also there helping. It was my first time in Texas, so everything was quite interesting. Traveling is fun, depending upon the situation, and we could tell from the beginning, that this time it would be more then fun; it would be an adventure, unforgettable.

It all began with the Suburban my dad was driving, breaking down. By the way, I forgot to say that in total we had two cars, one pickup, 1 big-sized school bus, and the suburban. That is a lot of vehicles. My family of four, plus my grandparents all came down in just one car. All the rest were my Auntie’s and Uncle’s. I guess they liked to collect them. Anyway, the suburban broke down, and we couldn’t get it started for about 2 hours. You can be sure we tried all we could but nothing worked. It was quite dark by the time we finally got it started. Praise the Lord! But oops, maybe that was said too soon, we didn’t have long at all to wait for our next "adventure", as I call things like that!

All the vehicles needed to be filled and so did we. My grandfather was in the lead, so he stopped at a gas station. We all followed him, but……..he didn’t see us. So……he took of down the highway again. He seriously thought that we were ahead, and had left him behind. My grandmother was with him, and tried to convince him that we were behind. But he had his thoughts set, and wouldn’t listen. That was a big mistake. My dad went ahead to try and stop them, he went as fast as the problem suburban would let him. Suddenly his motor cut, and he had to pull over on the shoulder. The rest of us took our time, filled our vehicles, and got something to eat. I was with my Auntie, we were driving behind my Uncle, and my Mother had been behind us, but then I looked back and she wasn’t there. My Auntie started getting pretty anxious. When we still didn’t see her a couple minutes later, she then pulled beside my Uncle, to signal him to stop. She didn’t realize that she had pulled right in front of a big semi truck. It almost hit us, but just at the last minute she pulled into the other lane. We were shaken up-- it had been a close call. We then looked back and my mother cruised in behind us. We were happy, but our knees were still shaking. God had shown us his power once more. We found my dad and got the suburban started quickly. Thankfully my grandparents had stopped at the next rest area. We were once again reunited.

We rarely get a motel but that night we had to. We had been planning on the trip taking only one day, but because of all the "adventures" we couldn’t. We were all settled and asleep by 1:00 am. You can imagine that we were VERY TIRRED the next morning, especially since we had been up really late two nights in a row, and all the adults except for one had to drive. They took turns resting. I was with my Auntie when it happened. A man in front of us had a pickup full of ladders. Suddenly a ladder slipped and fell on the road directly in front of us. We didn’t have any time to react, and we couldn’t swerve or anything. How we missed it, we will never know, but I know our guardian angels had something to do with it. Later on when I was riding with my mom she went to sleep for a couple seconds, we almost went off into a deep gorge. I said, "Mama, what are you doing"? And thankfully that woke her up in time to save us both. We were all getting very hungry, because we hadn’t eaten since breakfast at 6:00 am, and it was 5:00 pm-- almost 12 hours. Almost all day we had been driving though a "wilderness", where there were no houses or gas stations, and you rarely saw another vehicle. We found a very nice gas station. You can imagine it was quite a welcome sight. It has a subway too! Yum yum! We were in TN by then.

When we were about 10-15 miles from home the suburban’s engine quit for the last time. As far as I know it’s never started since. We were so glad that it was close to home. We easily towed it there. We were also very thankful to God and our guardian angels. They had a handful that time watching over us. I don’t know when we’ll plan to keep them so busy again. ( :