Our days after leaving Ontario were jammed solid with driving.  Our goal was to be scuba diving in Florida by Christmas Day.  Our routine for 4 days was to: 1. Stop at a grocery store first thing in the morning, 2. Eat a cereal breakfast while driving, 3. Drive for hours watching the landscapes go by, 4. munch on a sandwich for lunch, 5. Eat whatever we had left for dinner, and 6. Go to sleep after sundown.

It was the fourth day, when we were in South Carolina, and we finally had smiles on our faces.  We read on our dashboard that the temperature was 25 degrees Celcius and rising.  We pulled over on the side of the highway to stretch our legs.  We walked through a patch of trees and into a field to run—just because we could!

We got back into the van and I took over driving.  We hadn’t been going for another half hour when our smiles slipped off our faces.  We were following the highway uphill when we lost power and the van abruptly started slowing down.  I directed it onto the shoulder as best I could.  We sat for a few minutes trying to restart to no avail.  Eventually, we realized we needed a tow truck that could tow us and our trailer into the nearest city so Tyson started making the phone calls.