Driving Day #3, or "Po-CAT-el-lo"

Today, I had one of those unstoppable laughs.  It was the best kind of laugh, the kind that is formed at no one else's expense, just my own.  After that good laugh — and more than a few prayers — everything else just worked out fine.  Here's how it came about.

We were headed away from a stop-over in Bear Lake..

My dear wife (whose preferred two-way radio handle is "Granola Girl") and our son ("Bubba") and daughters # 2 & #4 (can't remember their handles) were in the family van, following daughter #1 ("Little Chief" or LC) and #3 ("Ladybug") and me ("Mountain Man") in the U-Haul.  We had made it about halfway to our next stop in West Yellowstone, MT, when the power steering on the U-Haul went bye-bye.  (No small deal on a 26' truck getting ready to hit a 6% downhill grade!)  Then all of the sudden, myriads of warning lights and beepers started going off on the dashboard: brake light, oil light, alternator light, Miller light.  I looked down at the temperature guage and it was solidly in the red.  So I did exactly what you would have done.

I screamed like a little girl.

No, seriously, I pulled over.

It turns out that the serpentine belt came off as a result of the AC compressor clutch-wheel-thingy going kaput.  (So that's why we hadn't had any AC for the last 400 miles?!  They don't call it "serpentine" for nothing!)  So, I tried calling U-Haul, to no avail (no service where I was standing).  Then from across the highway comes Doug the Cattle Trucker Guy (who hauls cattle for 1,100 miles from Idaho to Kansas every week).  He helps me assess the damage, and offers me his cell phone to call U-Haul.  Apparently the reception was good enough on the other side of the road.

Anyway, long story short, we had to stay in Pocatello (pronounced "Po-ca-TELLO-o") for the night while they fix the truck — with everything we own in it.  So, we grabbed 2 adjoining rooms at the Red Lion, went for a swim to de-compress for a little while, had pizza delivered to the room, and everyone is crashed while I write this between big yawns.  Now rewind to the "laughing" story...

When my Droid phone was GPS-ing the area, it pronounced Pocatello as "Po-CAT-el-lo", which made me laugh in spite of myself, and I couldn't stop for a long while.  Kind of like Dudley Moore's "Arthur": "Sometimes I just think funny things."

So, laughter does the heart good like a medicine, no?  What trials are you laughing your way through, knowing that God is in control?  Pray that we who trust in HIM can "laugh at the days to come" (Proverbs 31:25).