Think back on your most memorable road trip.

Have you ever had a road trip where your vehicle broke down? Have you been on multiple road trips, along the same route for several years, and one particular vehicle seemed to break down near the same place for different reasons? That’s what this prompt makes me think back on.

My parents have had to have a truck for a long time now because of their horses. One of the trucks in particular, a red Ford, was a troublemaker. It broke down on us at least twice, and needed multiple things fixed on it that most vehicles never have issues with.

The two times it broke down on us happened just outside of a place called Big Springs, Nebraska near the northeast edge of the Colorado border. I was present both of those times, and it’s one in particular that always comes to mind.

My older brother and I had been asked if we would trailer a horse back to Colorado for one of my Stepmom’s friends, which wasn’t a problem. I had made the trip several times, both solo and as a passenger/back-up driver, but this would be the first time I drove with my older brother. The trip down was mostly uneventful but we were kind of on a tight schedule. We made it to Colorado and dropped off the horse, no issues. My brother had some things he wanted to pick up from an old friend of his, and we both wanted to eat some of our favorite foods from our hometown.

The trip home was a little nerve-wracking. We got done with everything we wanted to do a little later than we intended, but we were confident we could handle the 12 hour drive home just fine. The truck, however, had other plans. A couple of hours of driving later we made it to Big Springs. We got a couple miles further down the interstate when the truck decided to break down. The lights were dimming and flickering, and we used the momentum carrying us onto an exit ramp to help us turn around. We had hoped we could just turn on our flashers and limp the truck back to the truck stop at Big Springs, but it couldn’t handle that so we stopped. We called our parents to let them know what had happened and they made some calls for us while we checked the truck and trailer. I should probably add that at this point it was night time on a dark country road in what was effectively the middle of nowhere. This made my brother anxious and paranoid.

After a while we saw some headlights coming up from behind us, and my brother’s anxiety made him take some cash and stuff it in his sock for fear that we might get robbed or something. Thankfully it was a tow truck that our parents had called from a small town just inside the Colorado border. We explained the situation further to the nice tow truck driver and he knew just what we had to do at this point. We disconnected the horse trailer, he loaded the truck onto his flatbed, and then I watched something I didn’t know was a thing. He lowered this hydraulic powered towing hitch and connected it to our trailer! I had never seen that before, and it set me at ease that we wouldn’t have to just leave the trailer on the side of the road.

By this point it was a little after 10pm, and we were worried about where we would stay. The tow truck driver surprised us again. He had called ahead to the Motel 6 at the truck stop and made sure they would let us have a room. Which, thankfully, they did despite it being well after check-in time. So we had that problem covered. We thanked the incredibly nice tow truck driver for his help, checked into our room, and then made for the bar that was attached to the motel. The bar was mostly empty for a Saturday evening, but it was a truck stop and the actual town of Big Springs was further off the interstate by a couple miles.

Anyways, we had a couple drinks, chatted with the bartender, and joked about how this was our new life so we better see what kinds of jobs there were in Big Springs. The next morning we walked over to the truck stop proper and had breakfast while we waited for an update. It turned out that the tow truck driver was able to figure out the part we needed, a new alternator, and was able to track down a rebuild kit which was apparently hard to do because there was a big car show over where he was and all the other mechanics were busy. Regardless, he got the truck fixed and brought it back to us. We thanked him profusely for all the help on such short notice, made sure he was paid for the tow and the repairs, and then we were off.

After that ordeal, the rest of the trip was fine. We made it home with no other issues, and told ourselves we weren’t doing that trip again in that truck. This was probably about ten years ago now, and since then he and I haven’t hauled horses again. The truck eventually got to a point where my family didn’t want to take anymore chances and they got it replaced.

Now that I’m typing this all out and thinking about it, I don’t think I’ve spoken to my older brother about this incident ever since it happened. Almost like we silently agreed to never bring it up again, at least to each other.