I have to recount this part of the trip even though part of me still wants to completely forget about it. What should have been an 11 hr drive from Amarillo to Phoenix became an almost 15 hr drive. Reminder: 3 kids in a sedan. We made it about 2 hrs outside of town when we the fuel light came on in the car and we pulled over for gas. (maybe we shouldn't have waited for the fuel light to come on, but in this circumstance, it wouldn't have mattered, just for the record) We were, at this point, in the middle of New Mexico. We had seen all the signs for the historic Route 66 drive (ring a bell? seen the movie Cars??). We are in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere. We do see a sign for gas..."Route 66 Gas" and we pull over. We comment that at least it must be popular because there were lots of cars all around. (which we thought a little strange as the gas station seemed a little like a step back in time and again, in the middle of nowhere) But we pulled up to a pump...
When we went to go fill up the car, the pump didn't work. We were soon informed that none of the pumps worked, not at this gas station or at any other gas station for 75 miles behind or in front of us. The state of New Mexico was experiencing major power outages due to the wild fires throughout NM and AZ. They told us it could be anywhere from 3-6 hrs before the problem was fixed. So we pulled out sandwiches that my sister had made for the kids, got out some beach towels that were in the car, and had a picnic in the desert.
Within about an hour and half the power came back on and we were back on the road. We stopped about 30 miles up for food only to find out that the power was out there too. The man there told us there wouldn't be any power around those parts for up to 12 hrs. Strange. My take on it...there was a little miracle at that gas station in the middle of no where...we prayed and he heard our cry...even in the middle of the desert. Praise God. Made for a long day but we made it! :)
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