The cars and trucks roared by as we cautiously exited the Jeep. Angus had quickly pulled off onto the shoulder near the concrete barrier of the center lanes. There had been too much traffic to try to get clear over to the shoulder in the right lane when the tire blew. We’d been on our way to the North Shore of Minnesota and hadn’t even made it through Des Moines yet!

The flat tire was on the traffic side of the car. The heat off the highway in the near 100° heat, the power and nearness of the passing vehicles, the whoosh of the wind that they generated, all left me feeling a bit fearful and helpless. Angus was calm and quiet. He gets that way when things are beyond his control and he is just trying to control his emotions. I threw up a quick prayer for our safety and we got to work.

We began pulling all of our gear out of the Jeep. The jack stores under the back seat and the tire, above the wheel well so we unloaded coolers and sleeping bags and fishing gear onto the shoulder, shoving the bags and equipment around to get to the needed items.

Before Angus had even gotten the spare out of the back I noticed flashing lights and a police officer walking toward our disabled vehicle. Immediately flow of traffic moved out of the passing lane and away from us. I was so grateful to see him and I told him so! He was very young, still pimply faced behind his mirrored sunglasses. Vince went about changing the tire and I visited with the officer and mentioned how much safer it seemed now, with the cars slowing down and moving over. He explained that there’s a state law in Iowa that one must move over away from an emergency vehicle or there’s a violation with a $200 penalty! He said they enforce the law (allowing for vehicles that are unable to safely change lanes). He told me that people are ticked off to get a ticket for that but once they are in a situation where they are stranded along side the road they see the value in it.

Angus finished up quickly and the officer sent us off to a tire store that would he knew would be open, telling us it is where he buys his own tires. He wrote the directions out on the back of his card. We bungeed the now-ragged tire to the top of the car, thanked the policeman and headed out to replace the little spare donut tire. An hour and a half and a couple hundred bucks later we were on the road again.

Surprisingly, both of us were in a great mood. I kept thinking how it had been such absolute perfect timing when that police car pulled up behind us. I wondered how much trouble we’d have had had we been farther on into Iowa, way between little small towns when the tire blew. What would the odds have been that we could find any help or a tire store open out there on a sweltering Sunday afternoon? Would there have even been a town where we could stay the night, if needed? I just know that we felt grateful and hopeful and ready for a week of togetherness and we didn’t let that dampen our spirits. God was watching out for us even on the hot pavement of the highway.

I thanked God for watching out for us even on the hot pavement of the highway…and I sent a postcard from Minnesota to the Urbandale, Iowa Police Dept.