ColoradoBennett stranded in Middleton, ID

I hope I have time to blog the jist of our travel woes. Le Anne, Sierra, Kaia, Tristan and I left Denver at 6:30 a.m. yesterday, two hours later than planned. As we crossed the Idaho border, the check battery light went on in Adam's truck. We had an inverter plugged into the lighter and had a GPS and a DVD player plugged into the inverter. We stopped for gas and called around to find the nearest car repair shop. The GPS has a great feature that gives you addresses and phone #s of the nearest car repair shops (plus driving directions), but it wasn't working. So we kept driving and an hour or so later we hear this high-pitched beeping. It was the inverter so we unplugged it, to the horror of the girls who could no longer watch a movie. Then the speed dial and every other dial on the dash starting bouncing back and forth out of control. So we cut the cruise and AC and figured we'd only be stranded if we turned off the car. We stopped in Boise, turned the car off, then right back on, and sighed a sigh of relief thinking all was fine because it started. The scene in the gas station was one I never want to repeat. The girls were literally bouncing off the wall, not afraid of any threat I came up with, running all through the isles, squishing chips, etc. An older man passed by and told me, "You really have your hands full." I get that a lot, but usually people say it in a much nicer tone. Turns out the truck wasn't fine, and a nice man who runs a tow truck helped us get things started again and directed us to Shucks. The guys at Shucks checked the battery and said it was dead and wanted me to come in and pay for a battery and new alternator. I went in there and they talked to me for about 10 minutes, I didn't understand 9 minutes of that conversation. Finally I said, "OK, lets sum up." And I got from that that they really couldn't help me. I walked out of there fighting back tears. So we went to the truck stop and they said they only worked on Semis but they gave us the number of a Tire and Oil company. Tony from Jack's Tire and Oil said he would meet us at the truck stop to look at the alternator and that we should leave the truck running till he got there. Well, that was probably around 10:30 p.m. and he didn't get there until 11. He spent about an hour jumping the two batteries. We told him we had friends in Middleton and we wanted to get there tonight. He then suggested that we take back roads because the main highway was under construction and was down to one lane. He said if the truck died on the only lane of the highway, people would most likely get very upset with us. Then he told an awful story about three people who used their car to ram a lady off the road, set her car on fire, beat her almost to death, then robbed her. He said two ladies just shouldn't be alone on the road with the kind of trouble we were having. We sure didn't feel much better after that story, and we felt even worse when the truck died on us on dark stretch of road between Eagle and Middleton. As we were thinking, "What are we going to do?" Jack pulled up beside us. He said he was on his way home, just happened to be going the same way we were, and noticed our lights dimming. He decided to follow us (he doesn't know it, but we are confident the Spirit whispered for him to do so). We died in the best possible spot for him to pull up next to us on a frontage road and hook up the jumper cables. We started off again and soon after the lights started to dim. This was a big problem because cars were flying on this two lane road, passing us, and we were worried that someone would start to pass in the other direction and not see us because we were just a black hole. This time when the truck died we were able to coast into a gas station. Sure enough, Jack pulls up beside us. We were so grateful to him, Le Anne told him "I want you to know that you are an answer to prayers." We only gave him $40, and he was really reluctant to even take that. I'm sure he'll be blessed for a night of good deeds. We drove off once again and Jack stopped in the next town to get gas. It was so disappointing when we missed the street we were supposed to turn on (our lights were too dim to read the sign) and by the time we turned around the truck was dead again. It was 1 a.m., we were so tired. We called Mark Bennett and he drove down, gave us our 5th jump within 5 hours. I was overjoyed when we got to his house and led us to a bedroom with a crib, an inflatable mattress, and a king sized bed. We all slept like bricks and even made it to 9 a.m. church this morning. We got to crash Susan's family party this evening and had some of the best b-b-q known to man. The kids are having a great time, but are very eager to go see the cousins. Tomorrow Susan's dad is going to take the alternator out, test it, and do his best to get us running. We've seen miracles, we've been strengthened and protected. My testimony has been strengthened that God is in the details of our lives.