A Perfect Place to have a blowout

President’s Day was a good day for a hike on Sunflower Trail in the nearby Palo Duro Canyon. It was the same place where William and I had our father-and-son excursion a few weeks ago, except we had made a long hike on the Lighthouse Trail. I thought it might be too manly for a woman to undertake, so we decided on a two-mile trail more suited for the only female in our family.

I made a point to consult with my mechanic which car to take on a two hundred mile trip, and he seemed to think the 97 Buick would be up to the task. The starter had been acting up off and on, but I decided to take on the challenge. Wasn’t it a manly thing to take your handsome son and beautiful wife in an old car on a trip to the canyon? I felt good about the trip.

The steering wheel was a bit shaky when I drove down I 27, but I didn’t think too much about it, attributing the problem to the age of he car - some sort of Parkisons disease that most aging car suffer, I supposed. I was dead wrong, and the miscalculation could have easily gotten us killed. The tire on the front driver side was on its way out.

The hike – well, the walk - was pretty good. The scene was acceptable West Texas standard, but all the sunflowers were mere white heads and dry stems. Kathy took a lot of pictures, and William and I kept making fun of her for being slow.

After about fifty minutes of walking, covering about a mile, we got to the highway that marked the end of our walk, but we did not see our car parked on the shoulder of the road. It took us a while to figure out that we had to backtrack in order to get to the place where we started, and by then it was getting late. A park ranger happened by and I waved to him, but he just zoomed by. While we were debating what to do, the guy came back and offered to give us a lift to our car. We were overjoyed, but Kathy acted a little uneasy. We had to ride in the back of the pickup, and being a lady, she was embarrassed to have to do that. But we urged her on, and she obliged.

We got to our car by 5:30, still giving us enough time to drive to Amarillo and have supper with Michael. As we were climbing the steep hill back to the top of the canyon, the steering wheel was shaking pretty badly and I knew something was wrong. However, I kept on driving and fortunately, we made it to the highway alright. I picked my speed up to about 60, and suddenly I heard a boom and almost lost control of the car. Being a good athlete with above average reflexes, I managed to gain control of the car and ease it down to the shoulder of the road. It was still daylight and William, being a tire changing expert, replaced the shredded Goodyear in no time. We made it to the city by 6:30 and had dinner at Jason’s Deli with Michael. Things turned out to be fine. Michael was his usual pleasant self, even though he was irked by us not having the time to go to his favorite sushi restaurant.

Well, I survived to tell the story. The event could have been entirely different, for the blowout could have occurred anywhere. If it happened on the interstate, or on our decent to the canyon on a narrow road, I could easily have lost control of the car, and the result could have been serious. If the blowout had to happen, the Lord made sure it happened in a perfect place - on a flat highway with almost no traffic at all.

We should become more observant of things that seem to happen pretty randomly. If we pay absolutely no attention to them, then we offer no thanks to our Protector.