Traveling North, part 2

So day 2 of the journey to Indiana we got a good start with breakfast at the hotel after a restful night. We were loaded by around 8am and headed north for what we expected to be the other 'half' of the journey to West Lafayette, totaling 4 more hours. Wrong assumption. We made it about an hour and just outside of Xenia, Ohio the brakes in our Altima went out.

We were traveling on a stretch of highway that had a few stoplights and after slowing down for one of these lights, Jonathan made a jerky move of the wheel to the left and hit the e-brake. I said 'what happened?!' He said, 'I just lost the brakes.' There were a few cars stopped in front of us and a few behind us. Thankfully Jonathan's reaction after he tap, tap, tapped the brakes and no response was to merge over into a center median to avoid hitting someone or getting hit. After the cars passed us at the green light, we made our way across two lanes and turned right at the light to pull over where we could see a little more shoulder on that side of the road.

Jonathan called his dad. I called our insurance for a tow. The kids sat in the backseat entertaining themselves. We had some locals stop and see if we needed any help. After we arranged for the tow, we noticed there was a parking lot across from us at the entrance of a park so we got the kids out and waited over there safely. Another local stopped to see if we needed any help. Jonathan called the repair show that insurance told us they would tow us to and they unfortunately said the could not work on it today if we came there, it would be at least until tomorrow, but they recommended another shop. J called there and they shared the same. Then we googled.

When the tow truck showed up, Heath was beyond excited for the experience of watching our car get lifted onto the bed. Our driver said the shop we googled would not be his first choice, but that he'd call shop #2. We said they were full. He said, I'll call. And he did, and they told him to come on over. During this time, another local stopped to see if we needed any help and offered a ride for us. Heath was determined to ride in the tow truck as already promised, but Reese and I opted for the back seat of these strangers, Jackie and Jack. They had just come back from breakfast at Cracker Barrell and were headed out for a drive, they *happened* to have a car seat in their back seat that is usually occupied by their 2 year old grandson. So Reese got to enjoy her first forward facing car seat experience on this 8 minute drive to the shop.

The repair shop was able to offer a quick assessment when they got the wheel off and see that our brake line had come loose from the front and then caught in the wheel, puncturing it and draining all of the brake fluid. They called around to find the tube part needing replacement from the left side and a shop within an hour *happened* to have one left side tube remaining (no right sides in). They said it'd be a couple hours. Jackie and Jack said they would take us to a shopping area north of town that had a water fountain the kids could play in and plenty of places to walk around and eat. They offered us their stroller from the trunk. They gave us their phone numbers to call them when we needed a ride back to the shop. They *happened* to have Thomas the Train books from the library in the back seat of their car so as the 4 of us crammed back there tried to entertain the kids we had material! It was closer to 20 minutes to the shopping place, but well worth it.

Heath loved exploring the fountain!

We grabbed lunch at Chipotle, Reese took a nap on me in the carrier, we looked at a bookstore and then the shop called that all was ready to go! So we called our new friends Jackie and Jack who promptly came to shuttle us around town again. They said they drove by us on the side of the road and noticed our out of state license plates and thought 'they probably don't have anyone local they can call' so they did a u-turn about a mile passed us to come back around and see if we needed anything. And they were persistent helpers! We got them a gift card to the fro-yo place at the shopping center where they said they loved to take their grandson. Small thank you for a BIG blessing.

Have mama, will nap.

So after 5 extra hours in Ohio, we set back on the road with a functioning car to take us the remaining 3 hours to Purdue's campus, getting in close to 5pm. We ordered pizza for dinner (it was Friday night after all- a weekly Manz fam tradition). And we all crashed shortly after that in our temporary apartment here until we close on our house next month (8/20). We are grateful for the prayers of safety covering us on our journey and the traveling mercies we experienced. For your brakes to go out on a highway, we know this was the best possible provision where our whole family was safe and the damage to the car and our pocketbook was minimal. It was all part of the adventure and only took a bit more time, something we had plenty of as we entered this week of stay-cation time in our new hometown!

As we crossed the border, Heath chants "Indiana, Indiana, Indiana.... COOOOOOORRRRRRNNNNNNNN!"