Angels, Trailers and Automobiles

They say when you can't come up with a title, you should write first and then it will be easier. I'm trying to figure out how to bring a title to the mixture of awesome fun and fear and anxiety we experienced on our vacation at Eminence. Let's start with the ride down. I decided to go down early with my sister and her family and Ted will follow later to save on some vacation time. Ted hitched up for me the night before and we left in the morning to meet my sister's family at a meeting spot. Once we were on our way, things seemed to go well. I followed my brother-in-law so I would only have to worry about driving and not directions. Suddenly, I noticed some swaying. This did not start as a small sway, it seemed to be a severe sway right away. As much as I want to remember how this happened, I can't. Was I distracted and then did a strong correction to the wheel? I would think I would remember that! It seemed to come out of the blue. I've had little sway before and would hold onto my wheel tightly to not let it affect the direction of my car. I got out of it easily. It can be caused sometimes by a big tractor trailer zooming by, having too much weight in the rear of the trailer, and/or correcting the wheel. This time, however, I did NOT get out of it easily. I swerved back and forth to try to keep myself going straight. Abby was yelling from the back seat, "Mom!! What are you doing??" In an instant, I found myself driving off the road and down a grassy embankment.

We were all in a state of shock over what just happened. I DID say a prayer of protection over our vehicles before we left that morning. We always do that before every trip. My dad taught me that and set that example for me when I was a kid. I believe the fact that there were no cars for me to run into and that we safely drove off the road without flipping. God sent me many "angels" that day to help me out. I never felt abandoned. The first angel was a man who pulled over immediately to make sure we were all OK. None of us had anything wrong with us...no scratches, bruises...nothing! We didn't hit anything, so there was no reason to be hurt! He used his Onstar and got us the highway patrol almost immediately. They came, asked me questions, and then called my next angel, Butch. Really, his name was Butch. At this time, Paul and Lisa were just coming back since they were ahead of me on the highway. Paul (my third angel) corralled the kids and took them all to the nearest McDonald's while we took care of all the details. I called Ted, who was working at home, and he said he was on his way (he's always my angel).

Butch looked at my trailer and said it was a jackknife and that I was lucky I owned a Suburban. He has seen people towing loads that their car can't handle. Just three weeks ago, they pulled a young family with a 30 foot trailer out of an embankment across the highway from my accident. They flipped their trailer and totaled it. How did I keep mine upright? Duh. I don't know...I don't even know how it all started to begin with. Maybe it was my angels. They had dogs in their trailer (big NO NO) that had pooped all over the trailer during the accident. Those poor dogs! Back to Butch. Amazingly, the damage came from jackknifing and it was just a small corner of my trailer eaten up. When we opened the door to the trailer, it was like every holding area vomited. The refridgerator door was swinging open with all of it's contents strewn all over the floor...including my favorite marinade which opened up and baptized anything in it's path. It smelled like I was about to cook my trailer. Clothes had been thrown from the closet, plates and cups were all over, fire wood made a dent in the door, canned goods made dents on my counter. It was a mess. Butch and his brother were trying to close my slide out that unlocked and were trying to step between the mess. "Don't smash my bread!" I'm thinking..."I'll need it this week!"

Can you believe I never once thought I wasn't going on my trip? I spent so much time packing this trailer, and excitement with the kids dreaming about this trip...I was NOT turning around! Butch took his big rig and pulled us out of the ditch and onto the service road next to the highway. Paul took the kids, in shifts, to McDonald's. Lisa (my other angel) followed me back to the tow truck brothers' shop and helped me clean up the inside. Ted dealt with Butch and his brother over the details. Butch fixed our Suburban up with two new tires to replace the flattened ones. Lisa and I put everything back where it belonged and used Clorox wipes to clean up every surface. When we were done, you would not believe anything had ever happened to it! I gave my sister a big hug and thanked her for being there for me and sacrificing her vacation day to help me out.

During all of this, I was remarkably calm. It was probably shock. What was going to happen to our treasured annual trip to Eminence, MO? To you it may sound like a podunk town, but to me it is the place that holds a million memories from my youth until now. I couldn't disappoint the kids! We HAD to make this trip. Ted called the insurance company and he said we could take the trailer on the trip and have it looked at later, if we wanted. But when we talked to Butch and he honestly told us what he would do if it was his family... leave it here. Why take the risk? What if there was structural damage done to the hitch...a crack or something...that we can't see? We knew then and there we weren't taking our trailer. I started calling Eminence. Eminence holds a horse show this time of year every year. Everything was booked over the weekend, but this was Tuesday so I found a motel that would take us until Friday...then we would have to check out. This was better than nothing!

Ted now had obviously abandoned his day off. He was going to take us to Eminence. The three of us unloaded the trailer and filled the Suburban with it's contents. Ted left his golf clubs, and beer to keep the room in the truck...but we still couldn't fit all the kids. Paul called the Decker's (our other angels) who were on their way. They swung by McDonald's, picked up some of my sister's kids so Lisa would have room in her car for a few of our kids. They also brought us McDonald's. We loaded up our remaining kids and headed off to Eminence!

You might ask if it was all worth it. Yes! The trip was awesome. We slept in our hotel room but spent the full day at the campsite with our friends and family. Not once did I feel like we didn't have a home because we hung out with each family (11 families camped with us) and our truck always had what we needed in it. It all felt like home to me. How grateful I am for all of those people...and how they all showed their concern for us and made us feel happy to be there.

When the weekend came, Lisa reminded me that my brother, his fiance and son would be moving out of my parents trailer and that would make room for us. Why didn't I think of this? So the last two nights were spent full time at the campground and happily in my parent's trailer. My parents are my perpetual angels!

Occasionally, Ted was busy with phone calls to straighten out the camper situation, but overall, we enjoyed our vacation without a huge shadow of worry about what was to come. However, our adventures weren't over. Butch called Ted and told him we had a flat tire on our Sonata (the one Ted left in St. Clair with the trailer. Angel, Butch, filled it with air for us while we were on our trip. And that's not all...when it was time to head home, by parents followed us. On one big hill, Ted heard our transmission strain. After much stopping and starting to try different things to fix it, we decided our tranny was going out. My angel parents started and stopped each time with us...pulling off the road whenever we needed to check on something. The transmission would not shift into 4th gear and therefore would strain at 50 mph. We couldn't go over 50. We knew this would not be safe on the major highways and decided to pull into a Chevy dealership. How did we know where the Chevy dealership was? A friend of ours stalled near it on the way down in HIS Suburban and had his car fixed there. See what I mean? Angels everywhere. Anyway, after much deliberation, we piled ourselves into my dad's car and AGAIN unloaded all of our stuff and put it in their trailer. Me, Sam and Abby were not safely restrained in the back of my dad's Mountaineer. I was scared! It did not want to take any chances, but knew we just needed to get home and we were an hour away from Ted's car with the flat tire. Then we could split up and be safe.

I need to wrap up this overly long story. It ends with a $2500 transmission repair, a $750 deductible on the trailer and $10,000 worth of damage to the trailer that is not worth $10,000. We're sure the insurance company will decide to total it. Ted's car made it home with the air Butch gave us, but we got all the tires replaced after that. More decisions need to be made. Do we wait to buy our trailer? Do we buy one before our next trip at the end of this month? Do we stay with our parents when we go to Illinois beach? Lots of questions to answer...I hope our angels help us answer them...