Adventures with Soy Sauce

This trip has been interesting. It’s one of those things that you hope to remember fondly in the future. There have been many joyful moments along the way as well as quite a few challenging times. We have many experiences like that. Some of our most miserable moments are ones that we laugh about now- like the time we drove through the Mojave Desert in the afternoon with no air conditioning. The van was overheating, so I had the heat on full blast to draw the heat away from the engine. That van had literally two windows that only cracked open, so there was no air circulating in the back. It was just me with 8 kids that were mostly under 12 years old.

Cars were alongside the highway with their hoods open. You could see the heatwaves drifting across the highway. It was beyond miserable! Talitha was a toddler strapped in a car seat screaming and crying for me to turn the air on.  All I could think of was we needed to get out of the desert without breaking down. The kids each had their little bowls and spoons since we were traveling across country and eating out of a cooler mostly. When the begging, crying, and pleading didn’t work, Talitha proceeded to take her spoon and chuck it towards me, at which point it hit me alongside the head and flew out the window. Then she flailed her arms and scratched her sister Maliya across the face. I believe she still has a scar over the whole event.  I proceeded to stop the van and move her (and her car seat) to the backseat. You could literally watch the temperature gauge rising when the van stopped. We needed to keep moving or we were likely going to be stuck alongside the highway.

The whole thing was basically a dumb idea or I guess you could say really poor planning. I don’t know what I was thinking. We had left my cousin’s in San Francisco and were going to stop in Arizona to see Ron’s sister and her family. I thought it would be nice to drive over Hoover dam after driving through and seeing the lights in Las Vegas. I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea. I also don’t know why I didn’t think about that stretch of highway getting from Bakersfield to Las Vegas. It is about the hottest place on earth at two in the afternoon in the middle of July. It felt like the surface of the sun!

We did though in fact make it to Vegas without the van breaking down. My husband had called to get us a hotel because he heard about the series of unfortunate events and thought we may as well just relax in an air-conditioned hotel one night. The only problem was that I had too many kids to actually occupy one hotel room and they would not rent hotel rooms unless an adult was in each room, so we would have to sneak into the room. After walking into the hotel with our flip-flops literally melting on the concrete, I placed our oldest child (I think he was 12 at the time) and his friend that was traveling with us at a pillar in the hotel with a few of the other kids. I gave them the command to stand right there, don’t move, and just try to blend in (like that would even be possible).

I brought a few of the younger ones with me and discovered there was a huge line. I did have a moment of clarity and took everyone to the bathroom before getting in the line. In fact, I went and got the older ones and had them all go to the bathroom as well. After waiting in the line for 20 minutes, the youngest starts to say she has to go to the bathroom. Ugh…ugh…ugh…I try to encourage her to wait. I don’t want to lose our place in line. Her whining about needing to go to the bathroom got more insistent the closer we get to the front of the line. I appeal to her that it would just be a few more minutes. Literally as we reached the counter, she proceeded to pee all over the floor in front of the desk clerk. Not one of our finest moments!

That was one of many miserable experiences on road trips. It’s funny how we can remember it fondly years later. Thankfully I don't believe they are scarred for life from the range of experiences. There are other less dramatic moments on the road trips that are not so fun, but funny nonetheless. Just the other day, we drove around the corner in the RV and hit some sort of bump at which point the cupboards flew open and stuff flew out- including a huge bottle of soy sauce. We are still cleaning up soy sauce days later. The entire motorhome has the smell of soy sauce, but I’m thinking it may be better then what it smelled like before!

Our RV is holding together with duct tape, various types of glue, and plenty of love, but we’re still plugging down the road even though it’s a bit warm with no air conditioning (reminiscent of the earlier road trips). I’m sure there will be many more adventures along the way- some good and some not so good, but it is all part of the journey! We can choose to laugh and smile during these moments and soldier on or we can choose to live in despair. What would you choose?

 Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 16-18 NIV