Ever wonder if God is trying to tell you something? Today was a strange day, it's almost unbelievable what's happened but I assure you that everything that follows is 100% truthful...
Charlotte and I awoke tired but excited this morning. Today was the day of our first snow boarding experience. As I dragged myself out of bed I suddenly noticed how dark the flat was. As I flicked the light switch butterflies rose in my stomach as I realised we had no electricity. Had we killed the flat so kindly lent to us? Charlotte tried ringing Lisa upstairs to see if her situation was the same but found the phone line down too. As we peaked out of the window we saw a massive gale whipping through the trees and surmised that we cannot be responsible for the weather...
As we left the house and set out towards Frisco we had a moment of panic at an intersection as we realised that the power cut was nearly city wide and had knocked out all the traffic lights. Baffled Americans lined the lanes staring confusedly at the lack of direction and wondering who would dare to move first. (Obviously this would never happen in England as we're far too impatient and have much more sensible round abouts...) Further up the road we were stopped and redirected an hour out of our way because of fallen debree on the road we wanted to take.
We took all this in good spirits as we were heading to beautiful mountains and me falling over on snow will not be inhibited by a lack of power. As we finally joined the interstate towards our destination we turned up The Roots and our spirits lifted. After a few minutes we felt a bump as something went under our back right tyre and a sudden grinding noise that had not been there before. As we looked back we realised that we had driven over a fallen branch and I made Charlotte stop to check damage. To our horror the tyre had been ripped and it was flat as a pancake. Never fear, I thought, Charlotte can fix anything, but Charlotte just looked worried and confessed she'd always just wrung her Dad to come get her in the past.
Faced with the idea of two novices changing a tyre on the side of a rather busy interstate we set to it with gusto and giggles and you know what... we rock at changing tyres. The team-work was fantastic! We were very smug and satisfied until we noticed something very peculiar. The new tyre was significantly smaller than the original. It's apparently called a temporary tyre', I mean what use is that! You can only drive at 40 on it and you have to buy a replacement asap.
We rolled into Frisco at 12.30 (we had intended to be there by 10.30) with all the delays we instead had to make embarrassed apologies. Isaac drove us to the garage and we left the car with them to be picked up after snow boarding. As Isaac was finishing up Charlotte turned to me and said... "Do you think God might be trying to tell us something? Maybe we shouldn't be going snow boarding..." At which point Isaac got in the car tried to switch on the engine and it failed. The battery was dead as a dodo. Charlotte and I weren't sure whether we wanted to laugh or cry.
We talked it over, got a jump from a friendly driver and decided that we would head to the mountains anyway. It could all just be one of those days.
At Key stone we rented our gear, got on the lifts and terror descended on me as I started to process just what I had decided to do. As the lift brought us inexorably towards the summit I felt panic rise in my stomach. Yesterday had been the first day that I had ever stood on snow in anything other than my own two feet, and though I did ok, trecking across gentle slopes at a slow speed was not propelling yourself down a mountain with your feet strapped to a board... I began to pray...
At the top Isaac gave us a choice... "OK, we can go that way to the green slope which is shallower but full of people, or we can go this way to the blue slope that's a little steeper but more empty." I immediately do what any sane and terrified person would and opt for green but am out-voted by Charlotte and Isaac who promptly set off enthusiastically down the hill. I truly thought I might die and seriously considered chickening out (I am really not very brave under all my outer confidence) especially as I was having trouble even standing on the thing. But, with a few patient friends and a lot of determination I managed to do it!
I'm shocked at myself. I could stand and move and go from going down toe forward, to turning, to going down on my heal and stopping without falling. I nearly looked ok if it wasn't for the fear that flashed across my face every time I looked up. I couldn't master turning from heal to toe though and kept wiping out. Only once was it particularly painful when I got spooked by other boarders around me and ended up kinda cartwheeling down a steep icy slope and landing on my knees. The are now seriously swollen and painful but nothing's broken! About half way down (3 hours later) I was totally exhausted and really sore so I finally compromised my pride and let myself be toed down as we needed to be back in Frisco by 5.
Charlotte did really well. She didn't quite get the hang of turning but she did board all the way down the mountain. I think she could be pretty good. At the bottom we returned our gear and made our way to Isaac's car shivering and recounting war stories. As we got in the car Isaac looked a little pale. All the lights in the dashboard looked pretty dim and as he turned the key in the ignition absolutely nothing happened. A groan passed between us. We managed to beg a jump from fellow boarders but as we set off around the car park the battery died again and even the dashboard refused to show any life.
We rang Isaac's parents but they couldn't come get us because they were waiting for Isaac to come home and drive them to pick up their other car from the garage. We discussed hitching but I object because my mother would never forgive me. We ended up running for a bus (which is very painful with bruised knees) and as we got on we realised that it was now passed 6. The garage fixing our rental car closed at 6 and we need to drive back to Bolder tonight so we can set off back to Kansas City first thing to tomorrow morning.
A hasty phone call later and Charlotte somehow managed to persuade a very reluctant man to allow her to pay for the new tyre by credit card over the phone and have him hide the keys for us to collect after they'd shut. (This is a true testament to Charlotte's powers of persuasion.) As we got off the bus at our first stop we watched our connection pull away and realised their wasn't another for an hour. Charlotte was sinking deeper and deeper into despair as we're supposed to be visiting the Glasford family tonight and currently we're stranded over two hours away. We found a diner and waited until Isaac got a call from the lovely Jennifer who offered to come and get us. We couldn't thank her enough. Isaac hastily directed her and we drank earl grey tea as we waited for her arrival.
Twenty minutes later we found ourselves freezing cold walking down a deserted road with Isaac frantically trying to work out where we were and then direct Jen towards us. By this point Charlotte and I were joking about what lengths we would go to to create a good blog entry. Jen eventually found us and we made it back to Frisco by 8. The Phillips fed us pizza, commiserated us on our bizarre day and nodded encouragingly at our snow boarding renditions. They truly are lovely, hospitable people.
Isaac rustled up a third car (with a reputation for being unreliable) and drove us to our rental. We approached it with joy and as Charlotte and I got in we realised with a sinking stomach that the garage has left our lights on and therefore drain the battery completely! We tried jump starting with Isaac's van but it kept making a horrible noise and smoking. Up to this point Charlotte and I had faced each trial with giggles and determination. As our engine died before our eyes our spirits died with it.
Charlotte, Isaac and I prayed... "God thanks for an amazing day, getting us back from keystone and keeping us safe. If there's something we need to learn from today then help us see it, but please could just let this car start, please..." We held our breath, reconnected the leads, and the car started. Thank you God! We managed to get home to Boulder safely to find the phone and electricity restored.
I am slightly baffled though. We had power failures, four incidents with cars and three near misses in getting home. You know when sometimes things just seem too much of a coincidence? Why all those things? Why all today? Was God trying to teach us something? Patience? Perseverance? Maybe he wanted us to get to know Isaac better? I'm mulling it over. I'd like to know. What was happening today, was it all just random or was it there to shape us?