Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Graduation 1, Graduation 2, Graduation 3

What a month! My 3 kids have all graduated... well Kaitlin on Saturday! Heather and Nathan from college and Kate from high school.

En route to Minnesota this week for Nate's graduation we saw a coyote face to face - only about six feet away! The problem was he was running about 1o miles per hour. So it was kind of a tan blur. Compounding this was that we were traveling at 80 miles per hour. We only saw the blur for milliseconds. The blur and us met on I-80 in the middle of Nebraska. The coyote did not make it. Our car... well significant damage. Pushed all the stuff up front (radiators, fans, skirt, etc) all the way back to the engine, even knocking off the oil filter!

Stranded with a disabled car is no fun! Becky no longer sighs for the poor bambi's she sees dead along the highway. Now is poor driver! But after calling Nate and his being able to get a phone number for a tow truck in Kearney off the internet - we were checked into a cheap motel by midnight.

The plan was to make it to Lincoln NE so that the next day we could be in time for Nate's graduation ceremonies. Now we were stranded! Friday morning I dealt with the insurance company and the repair shop. Being Memorial Day weekend, we could not find a rental car from any of the 3 companies in town. But as the LORD does all the time, HE provided! A guy "happened" to be at the shop visiting a friend and heard the story of the coyote encounter - and wanted to check out the car. Only one other time had anyone heard of a coyote being hit! But his friend worked for Thrifty. He called in a favor and then handed me the phone - saying "he has a car for you"! So by 10:30 am we were on the road again!

Made it to Bethel University with a whole 30 minutes to spare! And we were so thrilled and proud of Nate for his accomplishment!