Well, we made it to Orange Beach finally this evening. I was just trying to take a little vacation and take the kids to the beach while I was between jobs. Our trip today, which should have taken about 8 hours took closer to 11 hours. As it worked out our truck broke down on us outside of Tupelo, MS. Thank God for the timing and the place. It worked out such that we were close to a decent sized city where a wrecker could pick us up rather quickly. Fortunately there was a car rental agency that was open till noon and HAPPENED to have a vehicle large enough to carry our gang of 6 and most of the luggage and food items we were bringing to the beach (trust me, we had to SQUEZE it all in). Unfortunately in all of this there were no mechanics working in the Tupelo area on a Saturday, so we had the wrecker take me to the rental car place and then to drop our vehicle at the dealership. One thing I haven’t mentioned so far was the the wrecker, the one who came to pick up our vehicle, well, he didn’t have enough room for the six of us to fit into his truck, he only had room for two. So now what do we do. We are stuck on the side of the highway without enough room for everyone and under time pressure to get to the rental place to get the only vehicle that would fit us all. I had no choice. I had to go secure the rental and direct the wrecker on what to do with our car, so, yes, that’s right, I left my family on the side of the highway. Am I proud of it? Absolutely not, but this was the situation we faced today. The only comforts I had were my faith and my boys (Hunter, 14, and Fisher, 13). I figured they could put up a good fight to protect my girls if faced with the challenge. So, the wrecker and I trucked it as quick as we could to the rental place and secured the rental vehicle. Honestly, I was going to pick up a 15 passenger van because I really didn’t think that a Tahoe would fit the six of us and all of our stuff. As God had it planned for us, they couldn’t find the keys to the 15 passenger van, so the Tahoe was the ONLY choice we had. Afterwards I met the wrecker at the dealership, got the truck dropped off there and then I rushed to pick up my family. As I took off from the dealership I realized that I didn’t know how to get back to the highway. After fretting about it a few minutes I remembered my iPhone and the GPS-like feature it had. I whipped that dude out and got to looking at where I was and how to get to the highway we were on. It took me less than a minute to find the UNMARKED left turn I needed to take to get back to the highway. I was really counting my blessings at this point because things seemed to be moving along much better than I could have ever orchestrated. It was just a few more minutes before I reached my family, who were still sitting there on the side of the road. They were OK. Fortunately we broke down at a place on the highway where there was an overpass. This allowed them to hang out in the shade and far off the highway on a concrete surface. If this had happened just another couple miles down the road we would have been in the sticks (that is a southern term that means the backwoods country)!! My family was doing fine and ready to be picked up!! They were excited to see the Tahoe and NOT the 15 passenger van too. Well, the wrecker told me that I might want to check the fuel filter and see if that might be our problem. We drove back to our vehicle and then to the auto parts store and bought a new fuel filter and a wrench to change it out. After a little handy work I was able to get the new filter installed, but unfortunately the truck was still dead. The dealership was very helpful and let us use their battery booster to continue to try and crank the truck, but to no avail. So at this point we proceeded to unpack the truck and pack the Tahoe. My wife and kids got pretty creative and consolidated some things and sacrificed a few things and we were able to get it in the Tahoe. We arrived in Orange Beach around 8:00. My Mom and Dad were already here and checked in so they met us at the gate and helped us get up to the room. We have already ventured out to the beach and caught a few sand crabs in the dark. So, we made it, and we are all safe, and we are looking forward to having a few days of fun.