Talk about a blessing

We were only about 2 hours into our 10 hour trip to Nauvoo when Greg, ever-so-simply stated, "get out the manual for the car and see what it means when the dash board says _________." I don't remember the exact thing I was supposed to look up but basically the manual said, "Get your car looked at ASAP. Do not delay." Great. There was something wrong with the battery and we were losing power as we drove.
A few minutes later he had me look up another warning. It basically said the same thing, "Your car needs some attention -- sooner, rather than later." Lovely. And then, about that fast...the battery power began to drain -- right along the freeway, somewhere in Indiana. It was then that I started praying, "Please just let us get somewhere that we can get help. I really don't want to be stuck on the side of the road with all these kids and car problems."
We got off at the next toll booth -- only to get stuck between two cars. The car in front was waiting on an attendant because the machine had eaten his card. The car behind us was driven by an Asian man who did not speak English well and couldn't fully grasp the desperateness of our situation. Finally, after spending 20 minutes trying to pay the toll...we were able to continue looking for someplace to get our car fixed. Thank goodness for phones with a GPS.
Incredibly, (and yet, not-so-incredibly if you believe in the power of prayer), we pulled into an Advance Auto Parts store literally as the car died. As you can see in the first picture -- Greg wasn't even able to turn the car into the parking spot. It just died.
Hello, answered prayer.
We busted out our pbj's and sat on the sidewalk for lunch as Greg and the nice man at the auto parts store replaced our alternator, some belts and our battery. Amazingly, we'd purchased the battery (with warranty which was due to expire later this summer) three years ago at Advanced Auto Parts. Thanks to Greg being "the man!" we had a very faded receipt in the car which allowed them to look up the battery and replace it for free. We now have a new battery with another 3 year warranty.
As if that wasn't enough...the man helped Greg replace the belts and the alternator. That was totally not in his job description and Greg said it would have taken hours for him to figure all of that out himself.
And it gets better...what could have been disasterous from a time AND money standpoint only set us back about $150 and less than 2 hours -- just enough time to eat lunch on the sidewalk and go to the bathroom at Drug Mart.
You can bet we used this as a teaching moment for the kids.
We said prayers of gratitude and we were on our way.