God’s Provision

We were driving northwest on I-24 W just southeast of Nashville, Tennessee, Saturday morning when our right front tire blew out.

Thankfully, we were in the right hand land at the time and Greg was driving. He did incredible job of getting us onto the shoulder of the road safely.

We joined AAA before our trip to the Grand Canyon last year because I was going to be doing the majority of the trip by myself. We used the service on that trip when we had a flat tire overnight while at the hotel. We used it again this trip as well. Unfortunately, we were not at the hotel and were not really anywhere we could walk easily to and go inside.

So we waited in the van. The kids watched movies.

Carys had to go potty immediately, though. Thankfully, she's little enough to go on the side of the road. J The AAA people told us we would have priority status because we were on the side of a busy interstate. It still took 50 minutes for the truck to get there. Meanwhile, Greg began the process of taking the luggage rack off the trailer hitch and getting the spare tire out from under the van.

Then more waiting. He looks cheeful, though, doesn't he?

Once Mike arrived, he had the tire changed and everything back together in 15 minutes.

Jacking up the van was the trickiest part.

This is the tire we took off!

We were on our way about an hour and a half later. About 2 hours later, we were in "the middle of nowhere" Illinois when Greg thought the tire felt funny again. He pulled to the side of the road, and sure enough, the spare tire was flat. We were about 7 miles from the nearest exit, so Greg used the air compressor in the van to put as much air as possible in the tire. It seemed to be leaking out almost as fast as he could put it in, though. The next exit didn't amount to much. It was near the Lake of Egypt camping area and was comprised of one combination fuel and food stop called King Tut's Food and Fuel. (I am NOT making this up!) They had one can of Fix-a-Flat which Greg bought (for $6.21!). He also used their air machine to try to put more air in the tire. We got back in the van and attempted to make it about 7 miles to the nearest real town on a back road rather than a highway. We got 2 miles before the tire went completely flat.

The guy behind us saw what was going on and pulled over in front of us. I got on the phone with AAA. (I had also tried to do this when the tire first went flat.) I was not impressed with AAA at this point. They're great if you have a need somewhere where you can wait comfortably (like a hotel) but otherwise... It was going to be more than an hour to get another tow truck out. Meanwhile, Greg and John attempted to jack up our van using two jacks John had in his truck. They actually managed to do it as quickly as Mike, the "professional" did. Anyway, John and Dana planned to take Greg and the tire into Marion to Walmart to buy a new tire then back to put it on the van. But, guess what? A mounted tire John had in his truck that he was taking in to have the tire removed from the rim so he could use the tire for something else actually fit our van perfectly. Is that God, or what? They put it on and led us in to Walmart where we bought a new tire and had it put on. John and Dana did NOT want to take any money EVEN for the mounted tire which they gave us, but we finally convinced them to at least take $20 for it. She was adamant that they didn't stop to help us for money. We knew that, of course, but they gave us the tire and rim and spent a lot of time helping us. We hope they at least enjoyed dinner out!

To make a LONG story somewhat shorter, we would have arrived in Belleville at 3:00pm Saturday afternoon, instead we got there at 8:00pm. What a day! Thank you God for watching over your children during all of this mess!