......The Great Bus Breakdown of Surf Trip 2009

Surf Trip 2009 was great this year. We left on the Monday of spring break and came back on Good Friday. We did this last year,too. The weather starting out was much better this year. Last year we drove all the way down in serious rain. This year was sunny and clear but the wind was rough. It was pushing the bus around the whole time.


There were 11 youth and 4 adults. Me, Robert Boggs, London Paulson, and Zach Reynolds were the chaperones who sacrificed a week and went to sunny, beautiful Florida. The purpose is to go down and let kids surf and fish as much as possible for three days. We go to Sebastian Inlet State Recreation Area, which is very nice. The surf is good there and they have a several places to fish along the jetty, including a long pier. It works out great for us because we get there and unload everybody to let them do their things and at lunchtime I go to their picnic area, throw some charcoal in one of their grills and get lunch going. They come in for a break, grab a hot dog or a burger and head back out for the afternoon. We stay as long as they want and then go back to the motel and get cleaned up for supper. We always ate where there were a couple of options and then let them have free time until they go to bed. Playing cards worked for some of us every night.


There's something about the 2nd day of this trip. Last year that's when the "worst storm in 30 years" blew through our campsite and took down 2 of the tents and make lakes in the others. This year, the bus broke down on the 2nd day.


We were coming back from Sebastian and had stopped at a surf shop to get some stuff to repair some boards. As we started back, the bus cut off in the middle of the road. Tried to start it. It started but then cut off. Two lights lit up on the dash-CHECK ENGINE in yellow and STOP ENGINE in red. Crap. Not good. Hit the flashers. Got out and went towards the back of the bus and saw it before I took 2 steps. Water. Green water running out from under the bus. Lots of it.


A policeman pulls up and gets behind us with his lights on. I open the door to the engine compartment. We can smell it, but can't see the cause.
(I'll tell this very compactly, but it didn't resolve that neatly. Just know there was lots of long silences, stretches where we had no idea what to do).


The bus has an override that won't allow the bus to be started when the re's low or no water in it. That keeps you from burning up the engine. It's why the STOP ENGINE light came on and why it cut off and wouldn't start.


Priority 1 is to get the bus off the road. We are on the main drag coming off the beach in the inside lane at 5:30 in the afternoon. People behind us are hating life. Zach and a couple of kids go to the 7-11 on the corner and buy 5 gallons of water. We're going to pour it in and see if we can "fool" the system long enough to pull it off the road. I get in and they start pouring. I plan on going up to the next block and take a right and putting in on the side of the road where it's fairly open and deserted. I start it up and Zach comes up and yells the policeman said just pull in the parking lot on my right. The small, tight parking lot on my right. I turn it, nose it and cut it off.


Priorities 2A and 2B are to figure out how we'll get it fixed and how to get the kids back to the hotel. I put Zach in charge of trying to get a taxi for the kids. Meanwhile, the other adults are on the phone trying to line up a tow truck and mechanic.

A fire truck comes by and does the Haz-Mat thing to the anti-freeze we've been leaking. We ask him who they call when their fire trucks need towing. He mentioned someone and said he would call them for us if we wanted. We wanted.



Zach finally get a taxi company to commit to coming with a van to get the guys. About 5 minutes after that a woman in a minivan pulls up and starts asking the cop why he's giving a church bus a ticket. He explains he's not and he's just helping us. She comes over and introduces herself. Her name is Jeannie and she works at a church nearby and was going home and saw us. She asked if she could help us and we told her we were trying to get the kids to the motel and the bus to a mechanic. She volunteered to drive the guys back and told us to cancel the taxi. Very nice. She called her friend Bertha and between the 2 of them they drove all our guys back, saving us a big and unexpected taxi cost. She also gave me her number and told me to call her if I needed a ride back from wherever we took the bus! Which was the $64,000 question- who was going to fix the bus?



The tow truck showed up. The big honkin' tow truck showed up. The guy that got out was about as big as the truck. We told him what the deal was and I asked him if knew where we could get something that big fixed. He said there was a guy in Palm Bay who he took stuff like ours to, and he did good work and could probably help us out. I said fine, take us there.



But first we had to move the bus again. I had pulled in straight as far as I could. The tow truck could not get to the front to lift it up. So I had to back it out into traffic and put it alongside the curb so he could do what he needed to. It had cooled down enough by this point so I figured I had about a minute before it would heat up enough to shut it down.

No pressure. One minute to back it up onto the street again and parallel it to the curb with all the traffic stopped watching me.

No pressure at all.



Well, I managed to get it done, he hooked it up and off we went. "We" were Robert Boggs and myself. The guy said Palm Bay was only 5 miles away. Which was good in terms of time, but I knew wouldn't help in the cost. Once they pick it up, it's the same fee regardless, 99% of the time.

I asked him if anyone would be at the garage I could talk to and he said no because it was after 6 and he closed at 5. But I could drop it off and come back early in the morning and talk to him and he'd probably get to us right away. A few moments later we pulled up and the fence going to the back was still open. Two guys came out and waved us back! We pulled in and got out. The older of the 2 men said we were lucky, that usually he's long gone but an insurance adjustor had stayed late and just left. I told him our situation. He asked me what time I had to be on the road in the morning. I told him I wasn't getting out of town,but I had kids to drive back and forth surfing. He opened it up and took a panel off so he could see into the engine. We had a busted water pipe about as long as my hand.He said he could take care of it but I'd have to come by in the morning and "take care" of him. Which meant he'd been burnt before by out of town groups getting repairs and splitting before paying. I told him if he was going fix it tonight I'd stay and "take care" of him right then. He said "Deal" and 40 minutes later we were settling the bill. He gave me a number and said is that all right and I told hm I was happy as a clam. His bill was less than the tow truck's. He even made a heat shield for the new section of pipe, because it was close to the exhaust pipe. Between him and the tow truck guy, they couldn't have been nicer or more helpful.Bus repaired and filled with water and antifreeze, we drove out of his lot right at 8:00.

Driving back to the motel, Robert and I started putting together all the ways God took care of us each step of the way. I mean, when that piece of hose broke, we had nothing. No idea who to call, no mechanic, nothing.
But God sends us a super nice policeman, and firemen who know a towing service and are willing to call them for us. If I'd pulled in the first place I'd planned, Jeannie wouldn't have seen us and offered to help. We get a tow truck driver who knows a place and the place is still open an hour after regular hours. The owner goes out of his way to fix us and get us out of there so our trip is not interrupted or delayed a bit.
Too many things fell into place for it to be random or coincidental. It was God. Watching over us. Taking care of us. And not with the overtly miraculous (the bus didn't heal itself), but with people and situations God put in place before we came along. At one point the tow driver said it was just luck of the draw that he was the one we got. I told him I thought it was God's doing and he was a blessing to us.

Anyway, we got back and nearly everyone else had eaten, so we parked the bus and walked next door to the IHOP. We were starving. Under other conditions, not my first choice, but it looked pretty good right then.

And that is the story of ......