What have we learned?

Tuesday night after dinner we elected to go grocery shopping in Hagerstown. Our first stop was SAM's club for our bulk food items and to look at laptops for Tim. Then we went next door to Martin's to get the rest of our food items. On our way home, we stopped by Wal-Mart to pick up a couple odds and ends and look at their laptops.

Busy evening, right? Yep.

So it's already after 9:30 when we start the final leg of our trip home. We fully expected to be home around 10pm and get everyone into bed, but as you've probably already guessed, it didn't quite turn out that way.

5 minutes from the house, we turned onto McCubbins Hollow and made the first turn by the farm house, only to be confronted with a "puddle" and a "high water" sign. Knowing that the creek will flood that section of the road if it rains hard enough, but also knowing that 3 hours ago it wasn't anywhere near the road, we guessed that it wasn't all that deep and decided to just plow through it to the other side. Squeals of glee were heard from four of us as the water rooster-tailed around us.

About that time we start thinking that we shouldn't be doing this, and rightfully so as the headlights illuminated the orange clay-mud water as it splashed up and over our front windshield and roof. The Trailblazer stalled and could not be started again, and the water started to seep in at the bottom of the doors.

We had to call a tow truck to come get us out. While we waited about 15 minutes for him to get there, the kids started freaking out thinking that we were going to drown. In reality, the water was only two feet deep, but it took prayer and LOTS of primary songs to calm them down. At some point I gave up trying to keep my feet out of the water; I ended up with water half-way up to my knees and it was like the movies when we opened our doors and the water poured out onto the road! I felt bad (but grateful) for the guy that had to wade out into the water to hook up to us and pull us out. He called a friend (or coworker?) to help under the hood so that we could try to start it, and a DirectTV guy stopped to help, too. Unfortunately there was too much water in the engine for it to turn over, and we almost burnt up the started trying.

We called a nearby friend who graciously braved the roads to come get us and our groceries and took us the long way home, arriving shortly before midnight. Interestingly enough, she had been thinking about me off and on all day, thinking it was because of my recent birthday, and was still awake when we called. I love it when the Spirit works!

So, what have we learned here?

1. "High water" really means high water.
2. Never go through a "puddle" at night, especially on a road that can flood.
3. If you do brave the "puddle", do so SLOWLY so that you can recognize danger early and back out if necessary.
4. Snorkels are wonderful things.

We had to have the TB towed to Big K's (awesome guys, BTW, they worked on the TB for over an hour trying to get it working that night). The insurance will be looking at it today or tomorrow so that we can get the repairs started. I'm hoping it is not a total loss because if it is this will be the second TB we've killed. Tim has been going around for the last two days telling everyone that he "drowned" the TB. I've decided to get him a set of goggles, flippers, and (of course) a snorkel for fathers' day. :)