things could be worse...

It was 11:03 this morning, the boys and I were just hopping on I-35 for a quick 90 mile drive to Waco to meet our favorite Ashley at the Cameron Park Zoo. The trip began in the most uneventful way with me reminding Justin to keep his phone handy in case I had car trouble, then I kissed his goodbye and we were off. I noticed traffic was heavier than normal but attributed it to spring break traffic (most texas schools are back in session tomorrow) and the hoards of people leaving austin after sxsw. We made it about 40 miles (time is now about 11:45) and came upon a wall of stopped cars, traffic was crawling along at about 5-8 mph, not the end of the world as accidents on this particular stretch of I-35 are not uncommon...it was just going to make us late to the zoo. About 30 minutes into sitting in non-moving traffic (time is now 12:15)i noticed the a/c wasnt kicking out much cool air, but i thought "hmmmm, must need to be charged. ill tell justin when we get home." again not too bad as it was a beautiful 70 degrees with a nice breeze. However, a few minutes later (about 12;25) i realize the temperture gauge in the car was rapidly approaching the red region (we live in Texas and it had never done this even in the heat of summer) and then suddenly SMOKE WAS POURING OUT FROM UNDER THE HOOD!!! (*NOTE:remember we are in bumper to bumper traffic in the middle of nowhere and i am in the middle lane). well, the nice thing about a smoking car in traffic is that people move out of your way rather quickly, so i managed to rush over the the outside shoulder lane, slam the car into park and turn it off before the boys and i explode. after a moment of me panicing i calm down and attempt to call justin. notice the word attempt and remember we are in the middle of nowhere...the calls do not go through, i do not have enough signal to make the call and my texts were not going through either. awesome. fortunately, we are right next to a rest station so worst case scenerio i walk with the boys to the rest stop. finally, after about 80 attempts the call to justin goes through.(time: 12:40) i tell him the car is overheating, he asks me what kind of smoke or was it steam? i have no idea, but he reassures me that the car is not going to explode and that it is safe to go across the grass median to the rest stop, he says he will head my direction. (remember i am 40 miles away from home and traffic is STOPPED for miles behind me). I get ahold of ash and tell her the bad news that we are not going to make it to waco, bad news for her is that she is just arriving in waco. after much discussion we decide its better for her just to head back home as she would be stuck in the same traffic trying to get back home. now the boys and i are in a jam packed rest stop and we are going to be there a while, so we decide to get out, go to the bathroom and then luckily there is a playground at this rest area so the boys run off some energy. we play until about 1:45 and then grab a vending machine snack and head back to the car. Just before 2 justin texts me and says he is at a dead stop about 10 miles behind me. at 2 i realize no cars are coming north on i-35, for some reason between he and i it is shut down. are you kidding me. at 2:30 hunter has to tinkle again so we et back out of the car and go back into the bathrooms and decide to play some more since its better than being in the car. at 2:40 judah barfs. (no worries, i dont think he was sick he had the hiccups and i think his drink of water went down as he was hiccupping and it just came back out). here are a few pictures from the playground...

The boys showing me their pears. and no, pears werent vending machine quality we had brought them for a snack at the zoo.

Hunter, who refused to look at the camera, was pretending to be the starbucks man. and i quote, "maam, would you like a grande latte?"

Notice how we are the only souls around? this is during the time when the hwy was shut down and so everyone left. not us, we waited.

isnt he too cute for words? notice the scratch on his nose, yeah that happened here too...

Finally, at 2:50 cars begin passing by...northbound lanes are open! and about 3:10 I see my prince charming rolling into the rest stop on his giant red stallion (aka: the truck). he opens the door and he doesnt have roses but he has 2 containers of engine coolant! he is my hero. Justin does some investigation under the hood, dumps the coolant in, turn the saturn on and lets it idle for a while to make sure that was the only problem. it was. so, at about 3:20 we enter the line of cars attempting to get back into the traffic that has backed up once again and hope that the car doesnt once again overheat. we drive through the median onto an access road that will bring us up to the next overpass so we can turn around and head back home. as we are flying down southbound i-35 i notice that northbound traffic does not let up for over 15 miles and even after that it is not going over 50 mph all the way home. i looked once we got home, at 4:10, to see if there was some major accident (i had heard from someone at the rest stop that at 18 wheeler had flipped) and i didnt find anything online, so i think it was probably a combination of an accident and just a massive number of people tyring to go north on the one road available...ih-35. so all in all it was a tragedy that we didnt make it to the zoo and didnt get to hang out with ash but here are the not so terrible things about our overheated saturn adventure:

1. we were 40 not 100 miles from justin

2. it happened only a couple hundred yards from a giant,  nice rest stop that had indoor bathrooms, vending machines and a playground

3. i had cash on me to use the vending machines

4. it was a lovely, breezy 70 degrees not a stiffling 110 degrees.

5. my cell phone didnt die despite the mulitple phone call attempts in a roaming zone (normally this zaps the battery)

6. a man was playing an accordian and he entertained the boys fora good 10 minutes.

7. despite it being the middle of normal nap time and the fact they didnt really have lunch, the boys did awesome.

i was reminded that things could always be worse and while i dont reccommend spending 2.5 hours at a rest stop with a 2 and 4 year old during the middle of what should be nap times...well, it was better than spending 2.5 hours in the car, with no a/c in the middle of summer with a 2 and 4 year old.

count your blessings friends.