2009: Half Pint

The Little House on the Prairie tells the story of a family in the 19th century who traveled into the wilderness and created a home at Walnut Grove.
Their journey in a covered wagon seems completely alien to us today. Imagine what Laura Ingalls would have written about a modern day
journey… My father drove our covered wagon deep into the wilderness. For lunch, Ma broke out the Mikey-D’s and when night fell, Pa found a
room for us at the Comfort Inn. I wonder if our modern journeys across the nation will be viewed in 100 years the same way we view the Ingalls’
journey.

"I can’t make the school board meeting," I explained to Dean. "My mother is in the hospital and my van just broke down."

"I understand," said Dean." You’ll be in our prayers." And with that, the Board of Christian Education prayed for us at their meeting. I have never
doubted the power of praying – and the prayers offered by the board delivered the hand of God to troubled life. My mother’s heart rate
miraculously snapped into pace so she could come home. And the mechanic (who couldn’t find what was wrong with our van for the past 8
months) miraculously discovered what was wrong with our van. Our decision of whether to rent a van for the trip, buy a new Kia, or repair the van
was decided for us!

I happily picked up the van on the day we were leaving town, and expected the mechanic to be as excited about the repair as I was! "Well….", he
sighed, "We THINK we fixed it. We hope we fixed it." What was this? This wasn’t the message I expected. We were leaving in two hours! "The van
was sparking and arching – we fixed that. But the coils are all rusty so you might have problem from too much resistance. But you’ll probably be
fine. Have a nice trip."

I tried to ignore how deeply concerned I was from the mechanic’s reaction because I needed to pack the van.

Linda had packed nearly all our worldly possession into 37 medium to large sized suit cases. I had the pleasure of loading the van in a 60mph
wind storm! Regardless of the challenges, I pushed and I crammed and I got the van loaded. With the kids loaded into the van, we headed out.
…and twenty miles down the road, I hit a pot hole and a dash light came on. "Why is the ABS Break light on?" I asked. It turns out that pot hole
knocked our ABS breaks offline for al hundred miles. Thankfully, they came back online as we cross from New York into Pennsylvania.

The second day of our journey was going well as we sailed down the highway into North Carolina going much faster than the law provided for.
"What is that smell?" Linda asked as we approached a tractor trailer pulling a flat bed. "That truck is burning oil – you had better pass!"

I crammed on the gas and we started passing the truck. As we approached the tractor, our van was oddly sprayed with water coming out from
under the truck’s hood. "What the…" I reached for the wipers because I couldn’t see out the windshield. As I flipped the wipers on, I could hear
Linda yell "No… don’t turn on the wipers" but it was too late. I had them flipped on high and they were flapping back and forth before us.

"Why isn’t the water coming off?" I screamed – trying to keep the van on the road at the incredibly high rate of speed we were traveling while hugging the
side of the 18-wheeler.

"Because it isn’t water," Linda explained, "It is oil!" That tractor trailer wasn’t just burning oil, it was spraying oil too. I carefully guided our van
through the blurry windshield to the next exit – which was an incredible feat, I must admit, because I couldn’t see anything.

The exit had an automated car wash, so, we pulled up to the console. The console was blurry, scratched and difficult to read. I consider myself to
be fairly computer literate – in fact; I’ve tried to make a career out of it. But I could not get that console to take my credit card nor cash. After fifteen
minutes trying to cram my ten dollar bill into the machine, there were three or four cars in line behind me. I couldn’t back away from the car wash
because of the line that had formed, and I couldn’t go forward due to a gate blocking the car wash that waited for me to pay. What could I do? I
was stuck!

I entered the gas station to find a line that stretched around the store. When I finally reached the cashier and explained the situation, she said I
needed to buy the carwash from her. Why didn’t they have a sign that said that? By the time I returned to the car wash, there were seven cars in
line behind us and I could tell by their single fingered jesters they were upset at a stupid northerner – I just hoped it wasn’t me (since I was the only
northerner in sight). We went through the car wash with high expectations our windshield would be clean, but as we pulled away, the car wash
hadn’t cut through the oil!

I pulled over to fill the tank up with gas (15 cents off with a car wash!) but found there was no way to tell the pump I had just had a car wash. I went
back into the station to face the long line. I waited in line. And waited. And waited. Finally, I had my chance, "I already bought a car wash and I
didn’t get my 15 cents per gallon off."

"You have to buy the gas first," the lady explained in a slow southern drawl.

Behind me, somewhere in the long line that stretched around the
store, I heard someone say "Hurry up Yankee." Yankee?

"OK. But I bought the car wash first. I just want the 15 cents per gallon."

"No, you have to buy the gas first." She repeated.

The gentleman behind me explained "Friend, it isn’t that easy." I turned to give him my attention. "She would have to figure out the tax too."

I turned back to the cashier. "You can keep the tax. I just want my fifteen cents."

A dollar bill appeared from the gentleman behind me. "I need to get going. Just take this dollar," he offered.

"Thank you, but, she owes me a lot more than a dollar," I quickly did the math in my head, "she owes me a dollar and sixty-five cents." He produced a second dollar bill.

I could see I was going to lose this argument and I didn’t want to start Civil War II. "No… thanks. That’s OK." With that, I returned to the van
disappointed and with plans to quickly hi-tail it out of the area.

"Don’t get into the van until you fix the windshield," Linda complained. There were still streaks of oil.

"What do you want me to do?" I whined.

"Clean the windshield!"

I returned to the gas station to get a bottle of windshield wiper fluid. As I entered, I could hear the cashier say "There’s that Yankee again." Fine. I
guess I’m stupid because I don’t know you need to buy gas before you buy the car wash!

With the windshield wiper fluid and ample paper towels, I scrubbed the windshield until it was perfectly clean, and we headed back onto the road.
Ten miles up the highway, the van started to chug, then kick and buck! The dashboard started blinking like a Christmas Tree! What the heck! "This
is what the van was doing to me before we left," Linda explained. "When the engine light is blinking, we need to stop the van. We need to get off
the road!"

I took the next exit to a town named Lumberton and guided the van into small mini-mart gas station where we shut it off. "All we have to do,"
explained Linda, "is wait 10 minutes for the computer to reset, pray a lot, and restart the van." It sounded good… actually it sounded like our only
option. Unfortunately, that didn’t work.

I called AAA and explained the situation and the need for a tow. "We have five people in our van," I warned because I know we can’t stay in the
van while it is being towed.

"I am sorry sir. Only two people can ride in the tow truck," the AAA operator said happily.

"What am I suppose to do with the other three? Sell them?"

"I am sorry sir," she was completely not helpful. It was clear our next step was completely in our hands. We needed to find a hotel for the kids, and
then find a garage for the van, then find a car rental for us. With our plan set, we executed it. Using my wife’s cell phone’s internet connection, we
located the hotel, and then used our GPS to plot the fastest path.
We started the van and as it kicked and bucked us down the road. I felt like Han Solo in Star Wars flying the Millennium Fulken while under
imperial attack. "One miscalculation kid and we’ll fly right into a asteroid field and that would put a real cramp in your day," The GPS was yelling at
us to turn around. "It must be wrong" I yelled over the sound of the engine. "The hotel must be just down this road." But after a mile, when it was
clear we were headed into the wilderness, I turned the van around and decided to listen to the nagging GPS. Oddly, we found the hotel sat right
next to the minimart! If we had known, we would have walked the thirty feet to the hotel rather than try to drive the van two miles.

With the kids unloaded safely into a hotel room, I then unloaded the thirty-seven suitcases into the room. I found a garage that could look at the
van on Saturday. I found a place that could rent us a car on Saturday. And I called AAA to tow the van.

It felt odd seeing our empty van get loaded onto a flat-bed tow truck. The van was heading off 38 miles to a garage we never heard of, to a town
we had never seen, to be fixed by people we didn’t know. "You know," Linda mentioned as we watched the van roll away atop the tow truck, "It is
very likely we’ll never see that van again!"

Oh no! I don’t like where this is headed….

‘Holiday Roooooo oh oh oh oh oh oh oad. Holiday Roooooo oh oh oh oh oh oh oad.’