05.10.05
The R.T.
God is faithful.
Day 0, Friday—T-minus circa nineteen hours
The alternator came in Friday around noon. It took me a long time to remove the old one because I didn’t know what I was doing. Covered in sweat and grease, I triumphantly dragged my kill into the part store, and compared it to the new one.
During the next three hours, God sent people help me resolve the following problems:
The new alternator was defective
I wasn’t strong enough to pull it into position
The already crudely bent pulley was rubbing against a piece of metal
By 5:00 PM, (T-minus ten hours) my car had a new alternator, but it was less useful than before I started the repair. It was in a shop, where someone would look at it in the morning. Neither Ashley nor I had done much of what we had intended to during the day. Furthermore, my car could not get our belongings to the storage place. We loaded Jen’s car to the gills, but by then the place had closed. We would drive the firstfruits of our junk in the morning. Later that evening, Jen and Theresa prayed us and Susan up.
Day One, Saturday—T-minus one hour
I got up at 0600 to finish packing and drag my stuff into the hall so I could officially check out. I had a lot of stuff. It took an hour and a half. We then took the first carload to storage, got breakfast, inquired as to the status of my car, ran another load to storage, got my car, filled it to the gills and ran a third load to storage, shipped boxes for Ashley, bought groceries and ice, loaded our stuff, (I had a lot of stuff.) prayed, went to Wal-Mart to get a cooler and a pack of gum, ate dinner (we didn’t have time for lunch) and finally hit the road at T-plus eleven hours and thirty minutes. Oops.
Ashley got some much needed and deserved sleep the first three hours. We stopped in Las Vegas for gas, and she took over driving. We decided to cruise The Strip. Saturday night traffic made this a slow process. We decided to get off The Strip, and somehow wound up in the limousine lane of the Bellagio Hotel & Casino. Oops. People were taking pictures of people getting out of limos. The juxtaposition of paparazzi and limousines next to Ashley and I in my loaded-up, bug-splattered old car was humourous.
We were sort of seeking the Lord about where to stop. I felt that He was saying:
Stop in Mesquite, Nevada.
There will be a Days Inn.
You’ll see it.
They will have vacancy.
We stopped in Mesquite, Nevada. We didn’t see a Days Inn. There wasn’t one. We did a Chinese fire drill and kept going. We limped into St. George, Utah at about 3:30AM local time. My car was ill. There was a Days Inn. We saw it. They had vacancy. But they wouldn’t rent to us because we were under 21. We called AAA and they found a hotel recently kicked out of the Travelodge chain that wouldn’t ask any questions. They also sent a tow truck. I guess God didn’t say we were staying in Mesquite, or at Days Inn for that matter. But we obeyed, and He was faithful. When we talked later, we realised that we both felt something spiritually gross in Mesquite. Hmm…
Day Two—T-Plus twenty-six hours, thirty minutes
The next day, I got up shortly after the shop opened (9:30AM) and gave the man the key to my car. Then I got some more sleep while he worked. After an hour I got breakfast, retrieved my car (a minor repair only.) Ashley and I prayed and hit the road by a little after noon and had a rather uneventful journey through Mormon country and Wyoming. We talked a lot and enjoyed ourselves. We got to her house a couple of minutes into day three and unloaded. I drove home.
Honestly, I had more fun on this trip than I had had in a long time. And oddly enough, it was a spiritual high point for me. Seeing God come through in some potentially very bad situations really built my faith, and Ashley and I were able to encourage one another and talk about God.