The Events of Friday, February 18, 2011

                Most people know that Texas is the second biggest state. What some people don’t know is that most of Texas is wilderness. Waking up in the middle of nowhere to a multitude of birds singing playfully is an experience I don’t think I will forget soon. The singing is so loud. If it happens that a person is good at identifying bird calls, they might recognize magpies, bluebirds, and a lot of other birds that I honestly could not identify. When I woke up to the birds singing, I knew we planned to spend an exciting day exploring the Rio Grande. But who knew what the day really had in store? It would turn out that this would be a truly once in a lifetime day.

                Our day began with an unique breakfast, at least for me. I doubt any of you have eaten grapefruit and Cocoa Puffs in an RV in the middle of Texas. Well, now I have. Dad and Ben then installed our new ceiling vent while the ladies showered and cleaned up the RV. Soon we left our nice campground and started towards Big Bend National Park. The scenery was original yet repetitive. We spent the morning driving in a huge desert wasteland. Once we had an inspiring view of the Rio Grande, the Grand River, and, if you had seen this, you would have approved of the name. It was just so huge and the canyon walls towered over the river. It was pretty cool. At one point we were stopped briefly at the border patrol station, and even though we didn’t have to empty our entire vehicle like some other poor people, I was frightened by the menacing stare of a huge German Shepherd dog used for searching cars.

                We stopped for lunch at a pullover picnic spot and had watermelon as our fruit, an unusual treat in the middle of February. After lunch, Mom called me up front to “entertain her”. While I was “entertaining” her with my chatter, we heard and felt this big bang. I literally thought the fridge had fallen over. Mom pulled over as soon as she could and I turned around expecting the back to be in ruins. I found that everything was okay in the back, except for a group of shaken people. Dad and Ben rushed outside and found that we had a blown tire located on the inside right rear. It was 1:30 p.m. We tried calling AAA for assistance, but found we had no cell phone bars, no internet, nothing. We were literally in the middle of nowhere, 15 miles north of the Mexican border, 79 miles from the next junction. Our boys then tried to put on the spare tire. Located underneath the RV it is difficult to reach. When they finally reached it, they turned the wing nut. While the wing nut turned freely, the bolt behind it did not. It was stuck. We would not be able to change our tire.

                Time for plan B. Daddy wrote down our GPS coordinates and the necessary information for contacting AAA. Standing beside the highway, in his bright orange shirt, he tried to flag down help, but no one stopped. We gathered to pray. Just as we finished, we heard a pickup truck slow down, pass us, and turn around. Hearing our dilemma, he tried his cell phone to see if he could call. He could not. He promised to help us and went on his way, searching for a cell area to call AAA. However, he advised us to flag down someone else going the other way as that was the direction of the nearest town.

                So Daddy rewrote the vital information and headed out to the highway again. Soon another pick-up truck stopped and the gentleman inside also promised to help. An hour later, around 2:45, this angel wearing a cowboy hat and a pink shirt and driving a pickup truck returned. He said that he had called AAA and they would be down to help in 45 minutes.  We started working on our math with Daddy. 3:10, nothing… 4:10, nothing… We finished math, finished editing blogs, and then started to watch Oklahoma at 4:30. Around 5:30, a man pulled up next to the RV and told us that he owned the property around us. He said that people experienced blowouts here on an almost weekly basis on his property, mostly from cactus spines on the road. He was quite used to helping people to get out of scrapes. Giving us permission to stay the night on his land, he said he would be going to town tomorrow morning about nine, and he would get a tow-truck out here to help us. He suggested we pull off the highway to the “drag road” that the border patrol uses. He explained that the border patrol didn’t drag his property since it was private and therefore we should not be bothered by them tonight. He also explained to us that AAA does not come out here; the nearest office was more than one hundred miles away. Pat Baker, which was his name, was very helpful and put Mom’s mind to rest. As he left he did mention to expect about forty 18-wheelers around midnight, and commented that there was no TV reception out here in the wilderness.

                We moved farther from the road and started preparing dinner. Eating mac and cheese, Texas Potato Salad, and extra cookies was something that would seem normal anywhere else. Getting ready for bed as quickly as possible, and then finishing the movie was a fun ending to a day that wasn’t quite over yet. At ten minutes to nine, a truck pulled up in the darkness and the driver asked, “Which side is your flat?” Okay, who are you? Are you from AAA or the towing company? It turned out that Pat Baker, rousing this poor man from his supper, had told him about us. He confessed that he had thought about waiting until morning, but worried we might really need help and so he came.

                Then the comedy of errors in the darkness began. He had a hydraulic 22 ton jack, since he is used to working with truckers. However, he couldn’t access the axel with it, so he had to jack us up by hand. Then, to take off the bolts, he had a hydraulic drill, but not the right socket for our lug nuts, so he had to do this by hand using our socket wrench. Finally he replaced our flat, but when he returned to his tow truck to figure out the bill, he found his cell phone (which had a calculator in it) had a dead battery. Then he searched out his calculator only to find that battery dead as well. So he had to calculate the bill by hand. Dad and Mom were surprised that he only charged us $50 for the call, $44 for mileage at $2 per mile and the rest was the cost of the tire. Even though he told us we were good to go, we decided to boondock on Mr. Pat Baker’s property since we had permission and were all slid out and settled. Around 10:15 he drove off into the night and we, amazed at the way God provided for us, dropped off to sleep beside Highway 90, somewhere in the wasteland of Texas.