As Beth and I continue the countdown to our National Parks tour, I thought it might be fun to look back at our family’s first cross country adventure taken back in 2004. While our upcoming trip will be just the two of us, our earlier trip included our four children and my mother-in-law. Instead of tent-camping, we traveled in comparative luxury in our 23 foot Coleman Caravan travel trailer, complete with beds for all of us, a fully equipped kitchen and bathroom, and even air conditioning. Compared to that, our upcoming trip will be no “walk in the park.” Oh, well, we are still really anticipating our travels. It is fun, though, to look back to our family vacation 20 years later. Today I share with you memories from our unexpected stop in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The Dabiero family’s Great Western Excursion was an epic 24 day cross-country vacation taken back in 2004. Beth and I, our four children, and my mother-in-law Carolyn had a very ambitious (some would say impossible to keep) itinerary that had us traveling almost 1600 miles on the first two days of the trip. Our plan was to make it from our home in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania to Amarillo Texas by the end of day two, all the while towing our travel trailer behind our aging Chevrolet conversion van. By the grace of God, we did reach our campground in Amarillo around 11:30 p.m. on the second day. Right on schedule, the Dabiero van pulled out of our camper spot in Amarillo at 7:00 a.m. the following morning, destination Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado.
With two long days behind us, each of us was looking forward to only having to travel 550 miles, a mere 12 hour day. Our path would take us through New Mexico on our way to southern Colorado and the park. For the first few hours of day three, everything was going fine. As the old saying goes though, “the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.” As we left Texas and progressed into New Mexico, we began approaching the Continental Divide, and with it, increasing elevation. The higher we climbed, the slower the van was moving. While our van had a big eight cylinder engine and had no problems towing our 5,600 pound camper at lower elevations, we were soon to discover that it clearly was not made to tow that kind of weight at higher elevations. It seemed that with each passing 100 feet in elevation change, the van slowed another 3-5 miles an hour, so by the time we approached Albuquerque at an elevation of about 5,600 feet, we were crawling along at about 25 miles an hour and losing power fast. At one point as we were summiting a rather long incline near Albuquerque, we were actually passed by a biker pedaling furiously to beat us to the top. He did. Fortunately, just outside of Albuquerque, we found a rest stop and we pretty much coasted to a stop among other weary travelers. It is quite an understatement to say we were all very concerned. Here we were, 1,800 miles from home, and sitting with a dying van in a rest stop 300 miles from where we had hoped to spend the night.
I tried to keep up a brave front for the benefit of Beth, Carolyn, and the kids, but clearly they could tell I was very worried. While I thought of what our next move should be, Beth hopped out of the van and headed inside the rest stop to look for help. Thank God, she found it. It just so happened that inside the rest stop she met a mechanic and when she explained our predicament, he agreed to come out and take a look at the van. He asked me for the keys, had all of us get out, and he took off around the parking lot for a test drive. Perhaps our problems would have been solved if that man had just kept right on going, van, camper, and all. He did not. After two or three laps he pulled back up to us, shut the van off, got out, looked under the hood and checked a few things, and said, “my suggestion is you find a car dealer in Albuquerque, and get a new vehicle to finish up your trip.” I stood there and looked at him, waiting for him to say he was kidding, but he was not. He surmised that the transmission was dying fast and we were in need of several quarts of transmission fluid just to get us to a car dealer. The good Samaritan didn’t think we would be able to get very much farther at these elevations, especially since we were heading higher. With that advice, he wished us well and headed off into the sunset. It was at this moment that I remembered the words of our mechanic back in Bellefonte. I had taken the van in for a pre-trip service to make sure all systems were go, and while the mechanic gave us his approval to head out, he did have some sage advice – “bring the title to the van with you, just in case”. I thought he, too, was kidding at the time, and I left the title at home, regretting that decision as we stood stunned at this sudden turn of events.
Realizing I needed time to think, and the van needed time to rest, we checked on the location of the nearest campground, and thank God again, we found one only a couple of miles from the rest stop. We all packed back into the van and prayed it would make it to the campground before dying. It did. We successfully parked the van and camper and since it was relatively early in the afternoon, we headed out on foot to explore our surroundings. It was a very beautiful campground overlooking Albuquerque, and we enjoyed a nice hike around the grounds. My thoughts kept going back to the mechanic’s advice – get a new vehicle to finish up your trip. While that sounded like a good plan, I was in no financial position to stroll into Albuquerque and plop down thousands of dollars on a new vehicle. My choices were very limited to say the least. The way I saw it, I had two: take the van to a garage to have the transmission fixed, or continue on with the hope that with enough transmission fluid, the van would make it the remaining 5,000 miles and get us home safely. I had no idea how much money or how much time it would take to repair the transmission, and since we were on a tight timeline, I really didn’t like that option. While Beth, Carolyn, and the kids were busy back at the campsite, I snuck away for a hike up the mountainside at the campground to pray.
I am a man of faith, and I know that prayer is the best thing to do in difficult situations, and I was definitely facing a difficult situation. As I stood there praying and overlooking Albuquerque, I felt a sudden peace come over me. I was reminded of a Bible verse from the book of Joshua, where God tells Joshua, one of Israel’s Old Testament leaders, not to fear, and to banish all doubt, because God promised to be with Joshua wherever he went. At that moment, it was as if these words were being spoken directly to me and to my current situation. I knew right then what we were going to do. I was going to refill my transmission fluid, keep a plentiful supply of spare fluid on hand, and in faith, we were going to move on with our trip as planned. When I got back to the camper, I informed everyone of what I had decided to do, and we all settled down for supper and a good night’s sleep in anticipation of continuing our travels to Mesa Verde the following morning. I remember two things about that night in the camper: first, the high desert gets quite cold at night, even in the summer (fortunately, we had plenty of blankets in the camper to cover up with), and second, it’s amazing how well I can sleep when I put my problems in God’s hands.
When I woke in the morning, I was feeling quite optimistic about the rest of our trip. Our first stop after checking out of the campground was Walmart, where I purchased 8 quarts of transmission fluid. It took 3 quarts to top off the reservoir, leaving me 5 for future use. It didn’t take long for the transmission to begin to improve. Within a half of an hour, we were cruising along at 55 miles an hour and we were still gaining altitude as we continued up the Continental Divide. I guess transmission fluid really is necessary. I thought it was overrated. My strategy was to check the transmission fluid at every gas fill up to make sure we were maintaining an adequate supply. I found out that as long as I kept refilling both gas and transmission fluid levels (it took 27 quarts to get back to Bellefonte), the van kept moving forward. Imagine that. God had answered my prayers, and we pulled in to our campground at Mesa Verde with no further problems or delays. We were one day later in getting there than we had planned, but given where we were just a day earlier, in a rest stop parking lot with a van on life support, we were very happy to be only one day late.