North Carolina Trip - Day 2

Day 2

We woke up and showered and ate at the hotel.  David’s uncle was coming from Salt Lake to take us from the hotel to Autozone and help us figure out what was wrong with the car.  We were all so grateful to him for doing that!  We got to our car and brought our battery inside to see if it was bad.  They said they had to charge it first before they could test it because it was only at about 60%.  While they were doing that, David’s uncle was cleaning off our battery cables because they were pretty corroded.  They brought the battery out, put it in, and we tried turning the car on with our fingers crossed.  It roared to life and we all started laughing!  I turned on everything I could like the heater, radio, lights, to make sure that the battery wouldn’t die again and the car stayed on!  They tested our starter, battery, and alternator and everything checked out.  It’s amazing what a little grime will do. 

Going through that whole thing made me realize that there are a lot of people in this world that will do what they can to help.  They don’t have to be LDS or have a clean mouth.  When we were thanking Anthony for helping us, he said he would hope that somebody would do the same for him or his daughters and just wanted to do a good deed.  We got a lot of help from people that normally don’t get the best rap, but I’m here to say that those people were some of the kindest, most helpful people I’ve met.   David said later that day that there must’ve been a reason for the car breaking down.  Maybe there was a big accident that would’ve happened had we kept driving.   My mom also said that maybe someone needed to talk to us for some reason.  I hope that we gave back a little of what was given to us, because we were given so much.

Well, we made it back on the road.  Most of the other people on the road were truckers; I guess they’re the only other ones that drive cross-country.  David drove first, and then it was my turn.  I do pretty well at driving, or at least staying awake.  My sister Lisa says she likes travelling with me because she can talk to me the whole way because I can’t fall asleep in cars very well.  When we switched drivers, David said to watch the trucks because they like to change lanes a lot.  I had noticed that while he was driving, so I knew what to expect.  While I was driving, David was asleep in the passenger seat and Brian was on his computer in the back.  I came up to 2 trucks that were in line with each other.  I could see the front truck was going a bit slower than the one behind it and I figured the back truck would want to pass it.  I stayed back for a minute to let the truck change lanes, but it never did.  I didn’t want to keep going that slow, so I decided to pass.  I was watching the truck’s blinker the entire time I was approaching it, because I had a feeling it was going to change lanes.  The blinker never went on, so I proceeded with passing both trucks.  All of a sudden, the back truck started coming into my lane.  No blinker or anything.  And he was coming over fast.  I slammed on the brakes, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop in time before we got squashed.  I did the only thing I could think of, I drove off the road into the median.  There was a slight hill going down into the median and I didn’t want to stop so I tried to make it back onto the road.  Looking back on it, I should’ve stopped in the median and got back on later, but I thought I was going to get stuck if I did stop.  Hindsight is 20/20 I guess.  Well, I managed to make it back on to the road, but I was at too sharp of an angle, so I corrected my angle, went a little too far, and almost over-corrected.  There was a big car accident involving some people in my high school while I was there where 2 girls died, all because the driver over-corrected.  That was all I could think about at that moment, so I stopped myself before doing anything stupid, and we made it back to the road, everything normal.  I was shaking so bad that I couldn’t push down the gas pedal, so I was glad I had cruise control.  David had somewhat of a rude awakening, so he was a little confused as to what happened, and all I could say was that the truck came over so fast, I had no warning.  I was a little shaken up, but everything turned out ok. 

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.  We drove and drove until we hit Blue Springs, Missouri and crashed at David’s sister Marci’s house for the night.  We really appreciated her letting us stay there and letting us rest in a real bed!  Thank you Marci!  Having been in the car for so long made us all pretty drowsy, and I don’t think any of us had a problem falling asleep.