Broken Clutches and Cheap Motels (The Perry Oklahoma Experience)

Kyle, one of my mega-cool cousins who lives in Houston Texas, told me that I should go and visit him sometime while I was at Hesston because it is much close to him than Ohio. So I took him up on this offer over Easter break. The drive is still a good 10 hour drive so I invited Nathaniel to come along (Kyle was excited to be the first in our Gugel generation to meet Nathaniel). We headed out Thursday afternoon and made it 2-2.5 hours south of here and had to exit off of I-35 because of the wild fires in Oklahoma. We stopped at the gas station to figure out new directions and then continued on down the highway that was now trying to contain all of I-35 traffic. We shifted into 3rd gear to discover that the car would not speed up anymore, it acted as if someone was revving the engine while it was in neutral. We pulled off onto the shoulder, waited a bit and tried again. A pick-up truck slowed to let us in; however, we could not get past 2nd gear so we pulled back off to try to figure this out.

The truck pulled in front of us and a car pulled in behind us. Soon a police officer came to the door and said "were you a part of the accident?" We were uber confused and replied that we were just having car problems. Turns out that the truck that was trying to let us into traffic was rear-ended by the car right behind him. His truck was okay, but the car hit the hitch and was going to need a new radiator.

So the tow truck came and picked up Raoul (my car), the man said he was going to take it to Jesse's auto and called Jesse to see if he was still at the shop. Jesse was not, he was at his parents house making sure that their house did not catch on fire.

This is when we found out the car would not even be looked at until the next day (Good Friday), so the tow truck man said he'd drop us off at the Super8 so we could get a room for the night. Needless to say, Nathaniel and I were a bit unsure as to what to do, we were not to keen on the idea of getting a room together. So we call Stefan and tell him the predicament and he says that he will get a car and bring another person down so that we will have a group of people to stay in the room and it wont be just Nathaniel and I.

So we get a 2 bed room and take our stuff there. As I was talking to the receptionist my mom calls my phone, without thinking I hand it to Nathaniel to answer. She knew we were having car problems and was looking for an update; poor Nathaniel had to tell my mom that a few other people were coming and we were getting a motel room. I felt bad after I realized what conversation he was having with my mom....how would you feel if you had to tell your girlfriend's mom that you and your girlfriend were getting a motel room?

Nathaniel and I put our stuff down and after I studied for Heils for a bit and he watched TV we walked to the Braum's next door for some food. By this time we have updated both of our parents and are waiting to hear from Stefan about the car, he isn't having much luck. We find out about 7:00pm that he cannot get a car. So Nathaniel and I are trapped in Perry, Oklahoma in a motel.

Both of us decided that after this weekend we would be able to withstand any and every awkward situation that arose. I mean, both of us had "getting a motel room with my girlfriend/boyfriend" on our list of things never to do. I studied my Heils at a table while he chilled with the TV.

When our parents found out it was just us; they understood. We were both relieved, we were not sure how our parents would respond, but they knew that there was not much else we could do. Rooms are expensive. It was awesome to see how much our parents trusted us. We both decided we have amazing parents who raised us extremely well.

The next morning Jesse's auto called letting me know that it was my clutch, they gave me an estimate and said that they had ordered the clutch and that the clutch would be in that afternoon. After talking to my dad and Kevin, who is my parents' friend from college who keeps an eye on me out here and makes sure my car works, they decided the price was as good as I'd get and I called Jesse's back and okayed them to work on the car. That is when I was informed of the possibility that my car would not be fixed until Monday.

We had to be out of the Hotel before 11:30am, the manager knew about our situation and allowed us to keep our stuff there for the day. We walked way out of the way to get in town only to discover that Perry does not have much in town. We ate lunch at a small pizza-hut and checked out what we decided was the smallest Walmart in the known universe. By the time we walked back to Braums (a little after 4) we decided that we had walked about 7 miles and were ready to find out what was going on. Round-about 5 we found out that the car was done. Let me simply say that we were quite overjoyed by this news.

We decided to continue on down to Houston, because at this point returning to campus would be quite a boring way to finish out Easter weekend. We made it to Houston around 1:30am and spent Saturday chilling with Kyle at Market Street, Schlotzsky's Deli, and the movie theater. He also made us YUMMY TACOS for dinner.

Sunday we got up for church, which was sweet. We went to Woodsedge Community Church and it had a lot of technology including lights and audios, but unlike the other churches I have been to with this equipment that church used these resources to enhance the worship time instead of be the center of attention during the worship. The sermon was not the typical Easter sermon; the pastor used the story of Paul on the road to Damascus and his conversion from Acts 9 explain how Christ rescued Paul as he rescued us by his death on the cross. It was refreshing and a good start to the Easter Day.

Kyle took us out for lunch to a local Mongolian Grill. Neither Nathaniel nor I had eaten at a Mongolian grill before and it was good fun and rather tasty. We decided that we are going to have to find one a little closer and go sometime.

We headed back at 12:13pm for a mostly uneventful trip filled with me studying for Heils and Nathaniel being like "your wipers suck, I cannot see." We tried fix that problem with the windshield wipers in my trunk....but that was an epic fail. 1st off I put them on the wrong side and second off the one started to fall off as we were going down the interstate. After we fixed them we discovered that they were probably more crappy then the other wipers....oh well we made it back safely. With full tummies thanks to Nathaniel who bought us dinner at The Cracker Barrel. Thanks Nathaniel, you are amazing. But Brooke is more amazing...discussion over.

oh dear, I think I'd better end this before Nathaniel accuses me of continuing the conversation that is apparently over. SO END OF STORY! GOOD BYE!

P.S. I said my Heils (which for those of you who don't know is the Bible story from creation to now told with a timeline you draw in 5 minutes before you begin) and I am happy because I did well.