An Unexpected Adventure

You just never know when an adventure will strike.

Take yesterday for example.

After church we all piled in our faithful old mini van, cranked the AC and headed down the blacktop for the 25 minute -very rural – ride home.

Things started out pretty normal.  We were just humming down the High and Dry when Jan suddenly noticed that the engine was starting to heat up. He quickly turned the AC off and slowed down.

It didn’t help. That temperature kept rising – fast . He turned the heat on full blast in a last ditch effort to cool things down. He pulled off in the nearest driveway just as the engine died.

Would you believe that we ended up in a cemetery?!

Our car died in the cemetery!

I don’t make this stuff up. Honest. But wait – there’s more!

So there we were in the the Forrest Home Cemetery with steam coming out under the hood.

Now normally – I love to roam around an old cemetery and read the inscriptions – but with the heat index around 101 and oppressive humidity – we headed right for a shady spot among the gravestones.

There we sat – all six of us – in the Crockett plot by the fence under the oak trees.  I perched myself on a nice flat head stone of one Elvious Crockett while we discussed our options.

Jan immediately started calling friends and neighbors to ask them for a lift – but nobody was home!  Nobody. Not even you Lavern and Carolyn!

We thought about walking home – but decided that hiking over 8 miles in the excessive heat with no water and wearing flip flops was probably not a good idea.

We thought about flagging down a passing car – if there ever was a passing car.

We searched the graveyard for water. But of course there was nothing – not even a pump.

Meanwhile the bees were buzzing, the temperature was rising and Elvious was feeling a little bumpy.

Finally, Jan – the hero of this adventure- decided to walk about a half mile up the hill to the nearest farm house and see if he could borrow some water to try to make it home.

Would you believe they weren’t home either?! Were does everybody go on a hot & humid Sunday afternoon in July?

He found a bucket sitting by the well, filled it with water, carried it all the way back to the van in the oppressive heat.

We cheered when the van started up.

We returned the bucket with our fervent thanks to the unknown farmer on the High and Dry who left a bucket by his hydrant that morning, and waved good-bye to our buddy Elvious.

Then we drove home with all the windows down – the heater going full blast and a heat index of 101 degrees.

Home never looked so good.

Air conditioning never felt so good.

Lunch never tasted so good.

I’m telling you people – you just never know when an adventure will strike.