Stranded...For Real This Time.

Sunshine Kinz 143
Jul 26, 2015
2 min read

Let's just say that I'm lucky to be alive.

Yesterday was interesting-lots of firsts for the SK143 team. We tried raspberry cheesecake fudge for the first time, miraculously had 5 glasses of sweet tea without spilling for the first time, visited a gas station that sold dreamcatchers and alligator teeth for the first time, waited on the side of a highway in an overheated car, fearing for our lives for the first time-

-but, it coud've been worse. This could've been us.

Let me back up a little bit;

we were on our way to Jacksonville, Florida to visit some friends. Our [approximately] 14 year old, moderately banged-up family car had remarkably managed to run smoothly for the first half of the trip. Until, that is, my father pointed it out.

Not two minutes and thirty seconds later, the "Service Engine" light turned on, and the car overheated.

So, there we were-on the side of the freeway; our vehicle roughly 10 seconds away from blowing up and taking us with it.

As numerous 16-wheelers barreled past at light speed, I silently wondered if I'd live to see the stars that night, taste the salt air or feel the waves surround me as I swam in the ocean. I'd considered the chances of graduating the misery that is middle school-many places in my mind were visited as the cars went by.

What would happen? Could I do anything about it? Where did I come from? Where would I go? How did I get there?

Right. The car.

Luckily, we had enough spare coolant to last until the next exit, which we took and ended up in the middle of nowhere, on a 100+ degree (Farenheit) day, with no AC.

We were also lucky in that, even though nearly everything was closed, we happened to take the one exit that led to our main food and energy source for that day;

Peach World.

The place might've been tiny-even next to a gas station- but it was just enough to keep us mentally stable for the next two hours, while we tried to wait it out.

I never knew peaches could be made into so many things-from bread to syrup to fudge. I highly reccomend their strawberry lemonade fudge, by the way. It does, in fact, taste like fresh strawberries and lemonade.

After driving in a rather large, day long circle (we'd figured that we couldn't make it to Jacksonville, and something might happen the next day) the team arrived home at long last.

But, our day wasn't over just yet.

To top it off, we visited the beach so we could watch the sunset-taking a different car this time..