Tuesday morning, after swimming, everyone but me and Grace got in the van to go back to the American Girl store. Grace and I stayed to take naps. About 5 minutes after they left, right as I had crawled into bed after putting Grace down, Mom called. The van completely died not even a block from the hotel. She was calling AAA, and the girls were coming back with Nana (my sister's MIL) while mom and sis stayed with the van.
After an hour, AAA came and towed them to a shop, who finally looked at it and decided the battery cable was loose. They tightened it for no charge and sent them on their way. (Over the past few weeks, we've had issues with the van. John spliced the battery cable and put in a new connector, but that didn't seem to work, so we replaced the battery. We thought that worked until now.)
After a very late lunch and a 2nd trip to the American Girl store, we headed to another part of town to meet up with a college friend. (The visit with the HS friend had to be cancelled.) It was during rush hour traffic, and I was just starting to switch lanes to get over for my exit in a couple of miles. The van completely died. Luckily we were going down a slight slope, so I had a little more time to get over. I watched for a hole in traffic to the left, and got one after a couple of cars. I managed to get over to the shoulder and stop pretty quickly.
Because it was rush hour, I thought it would be best if we all got out of the car. We unloaded and all stood in the middle of the median so we'd be safer. It was so hot! A car stopped to see if they could help, but we explained that it was something with the battery, so they realized they couldn't help. We got the car to start again, so we loaded up again. After we all got in, I realized that the van died again. Time to get back out of the van! As we were unloading, someone noticed that a suburban had stopped on the other side of the median. I ran over and he asked if he could help. He offered to let us sit in his suburban since it was so hot. I declined at the moment (because I was a little nervous abut putting my daughter and nieces in a stranger's car!), but once mom told me it would be another hour before AAA got there, my sister and I decided it was ok. After about 15 minutes, Dan (the good Samaritan) asked if we wanted to get off the highway. We decided that he would take everyone but me and mom to a local McDonald's so they could eat, and we'd wait for AAA. He'd drop them off and come back so we could wait in the a/c. As he was dropping them off, he told my sister that he passed us going the same direction as us and realized that the temp was 103 degrees! He turned around and came back because he didn't want the kids out in the heat. How sweet!
Shortly after he came back (with water!), our college friend showed up. Dan offered to go back to McD's and take everyone back to our hotel. It was not on his way, but he wanted to make sure we were all able to get back where we needed to go. He left, and we waited for just a couple of minutes with our friend before AAA came. They got the van started again, so we decided not to tow it to a garage. We figured as long as we could wiggle the wires, we could get it started again. We drove slowly back to the hotel, dying one more time on the way. We were exhausted by the time we got back!
The next day we went to Sears. They told us we'd probably need to replace the entire harness system, not just splice the battery cable, and they didn't have that capability. They sent us to the dealership next door, who told us that they couldn't help us because 1, they didn't have the part in stock, and 2, they were closing the next day. Sears had given us an electrical shop to try if the dealership couldn't do it. We made it over there, and after a little more drama and 6 hours, the van was fixed. It was so late that we decided to add another night to the trip and leave the next day.
It was an exhausting trip! I'm so grateful that God protected us. The more I think about it, the more I realize how bad it could have been. We could have been hit when we died in the middle of traffic and tried to get over. We could have been hit sitting in the side of the road. We could have been robbed on the side of the road. (Maybe that's just my experience from Naples talking. Does that happen in the US too? It didn't happen to me, but it happened to quite a few people there!) God sent us a guardian angel named Dan, and I am so grateful he was there to help us out. I'm grateful to his daughter too, who was at home waiting for him to take her out for a birthday outing. He didn't have to stop, but I'm glad he did! I hope I'm able to "pay it forward" sometime, helping out someone in need.
