Just the gears I need...

This past Saturday was the usual trip to LaCrosse and St. Elias, with a twist.

Coming in to LaCrosse and traveling over the Mississippi river I attempted to downshift and discovered that 4th gear was missing, gone, not there, vanished. Turns out 2nd and reverse were also missing which made for quite a scene when I later backed my car out of a hotel parking lot using my foot for a motor (sort of like Fred Flinstone).

Now my car, which usually has been remarkably reliable, had some transmission problems which the dealer fixed and were, thank God, covered by the warranty. But this was new and visions of my being stuck somewhere out in the country with an immovable hunk of metal under me caused a certain amount of concern.

What to do?

There was no way to drive it back to the dealer before closing and it was too much of a trip to have someone pick me up. So the die was cast and all interested parties back home were informed of the situation and preapred to pick me up when I returned on Sunday. As to the car, who knows?

Sprinkled with holy water and blessed by the prayers of the faithful of St. Elias the adventure home began after Liturgy. First challenge, climbing the bluffs to the prairies above, then getting to Rochester, and then making it to the dealer where my wife would be waiting so I could leave the car and get home.

Needless to say it was a prayerful trip with XM radio football scores to fill in the gaps. It turned out to be a minor part that could be fixed in less than an hour.

A day of two later it occurred to me, broken as the car was I had been given all the gears I needed to make it safely home.

I'm still working out the lesson for me in all of that.