Michigan Getaway

For Jason's birthday this year I got him tickets to Michigan's season opener against the University of Utah. Erica, Matt, Coop, and Matt's parents had tickets also. Before I get ahead of myself I have to relive physically getting to the game. This was our first overnight trip without our kids, yes, Emerson is 5 and Sawyer is almost 2 1/2, and we have never left them with Grandparents so that we could have a getaway. Anyways, we decided to go up to Michigan the night before the game. We dropped the kids off which was uneventful, they both were very excited to spend the night with Grandma and Grandpa in Lafayette. Since we had gotten a late start we decided to stop for dinner at 8 that night. As we pulled into a Cracker Barrel in Kalamazoo Jason announced that something was amiss with the Saab. I thought we was joking...he wasn't! As he looked under the hood he found that the serpentine belt was off of the pulleys and he couldn't get it back on. That belt controls the power steering, the cooling mechanism in the car and many other detrimental functions of the car. Having discovered this we proceeded into the restaurant and I commenced talking with the ladies at the counter explaining our plight and asking for a phone book to call a tow truck. As I was talking one of the ladies said that was what her husband did and she would be willing to call him. She called and he brought their two young children out so that he could work on a stranger's car. Jason and I took turns holding their little girl who wasn't even one yet and supervising their little boy who was three. Their mom still had to work and their father was working on our car with a friend of his that he had called to help him. They managed the get the belt out of the engine area and removed the pulley that had seized and was cutting into our engine block. It was now about 10 at night and we realized that our hotel was not going to be reached that night so we transferred our reservation to the Fairfield what was across the parking lot from the Cracker Barrel.


Saturday morning - the day of the much anticipated game at the Big House- we began trying to locate a Saab dealership that was open on Saturdays. NO luck! We by then were waiting on Jason's dad to arrive since when he heard our plight he offered to come and help. When he arrived we still had been unable to find any dealership or store that had the part. Jason went to talk to the lady who had been so helpful the night before as I made one more attempt at finding the part. Ed called and Autozone thought they had it. They said to bring the part in and they would try to match it. He and I zoomed over to Autozone and SUCCESS! We found it along with a tool we needed and a serpentine belt that they gave to us free. The Lord was truly on our side thoughout all of this. Jason's dad sent us ahead in his car while he stayed behind in the Cracker Barrel parking lot. He did manage to get it fixed and headed home to Pat who was in Lafayette with our kiddos.

Us before the stadium was filled to almost capacity








We made it to the game with enough time to hunt for surprises to take home to the kids. The day was very hot but it was so neat to sit in a stadium that we had only seen on TV before. We finally made it home around 2 a.m. Sunday morning!

Us and the Matt Walls