The Rescue!

Eric's friend, Dennis, who is almost like my own child because we have let him live with us on and off for about the last 6 years, decided to go to New Mexico last weekend. His mom has a house there, though she is not there too often due to reasons I won't mention at this time. He followed his dad there so they could get some of their things, and then they were going to come back to Phoenix on Monday. Well Monday came and went and Dennis was supposed to show up for work at 9 AM on Tuesday but, never made it. We started to get worried because it's not like him to not show up when he says. His cell phone is broken and there is no house phone so we had no way to call him to see if he was OK.
Eric, his friend Steven, and Steven's 2 roommates decided to take a road trip to see if Dennis was alright. They left my house about 8:30 PM, in Eric's car, and set out on their journey. I was on the computer for several hours, as time gets away from me, and at about 12:30 thought that I'd better get to bed since I have to be at work at 7:00 AM. Just as I was about to go to bed, I get a call about 12:45. "Mom, my car overheated. Where are you? I'm almost in Wilcox. Is anything around you? No, just freeway and dirt. We stopped at Wal-Mart a ways back and bought anti-freeze. I put it in my car and drove about 3 miles and it overheated again. Oh, there's no radiator cap. Let me talk to dad and I'll call you back". After talking with my husband, we decided that we would both take the day off work and go rescue these kids. Chuck loaded up the car with a bunch of tools, jugs of water and a light that clips onto the battery...sort of like jumper cables. I loaded up drinking water and other random things I thought we might need. On our way, we stopped at a 24 hour Auto Zone and bought a radiator cap. We headed out, I was driving because Chuck has to take meds to help him sleep, and occasionally Eric would call me to see how far we were but we didn't talk long as his battery was about to die. It took us about 3 1/2 hours to get to them. Eric told me he exited at mile marker 303, then got back on the freeway, and drove about 3 more miles. NOT! He drove 9 more miles.
Here is a picture of Eric's stranded car and Chuck talking with the boys on the side of the car.














He tried so hard to figure out where the car was leaking water from. He checked all the hoses and saw nothing. He looked at the radiator and also saw nothing. It was very cold out (well, I thought so anyway) and I had drank water and soda... so, of course, I was trying to hurry them up so we could find the next rest stop. Chuck finally felt sorry for me and said that we could find the rest stop and then come back. So that's what we did. As it turns out, the rest stop was only about 1 1/2 miles away, Thank God!

Chuck ended up driving the car to the rest stop long enough for it to cool down and for us to figure out our next move. The kids were starving so we decided to drive back to the last town and find a place to eat. We all walked in to Denny's looking like something the cat dragged in at 6:30 AM. We ate and Chuck had to take his millionth cup of coffee to go (OK, I exaggerated a bit). I had to call home to make sure the other kids were up for school. Then off we went to get the car.

We decided to take it to the town of Benson, where Denny's is. There it sits at a motel until this weekend when Chuck and I will make another trip to retrieve it. We will be borrowing my mom's truck and renting a tow dolly.

Now we had to get everyone home with 5 seats in my car and 6 people. The only thing we could do was to have someone sit on a lap. The 2 room mates were dating so she sat on his lap. I felt sorry for them but it was better than being stranded. We were all extreamly tired...well, except Chuck and all his coffee in him, plus he was the only one that had any sleep before we left. I just had to take pictures of the kids sleeping and all cramped in the back seat. Do you think this looks comfy? The first picture looks like Eric's straw is about to go up his nose! Sitting next to him is Steven, then the other 2 with the girl being the one in the green (sorry, I can't remember their names).




Her head was on the back of my headrest. She is wearing the hood to the jacket so you can't see her face. The boy is just behind her. You can see his hat and Steven is resting his head on the boys shoulder.

We all got home safe and very tired. I think the poor kid's legs went numb!

As for Dennis, he was at his mom's house. I actually got a hold of him while the kids were on their way. His dad's Explorer broke down and Dennis was waiting for him to get it fixed.

I had a talk with Dennis so he now knows that he can call me collect from a pay phone if plans change!