Was it a Case of Divine Intervention of Just Good Luck?

First of all, I want to mention that I am not actually a very religious person and it has been well over 15 years since I’ve been to church. That being said, I am always open to different views and thoughts. Early September this year, some events happened where I look back and am amazed at how things worked out.

We had a family vacation to one of the casinos in the town of Laughlin, NV where we also saw one of our favorite bands. The trip was pretty routine for the most part, but the drive home back to the L.A. area is where the story begins. We had just fueled up my 2008 Nissan in Barstow and had plenty of gas for the way home. I am the type of driver who likes to go all the way through with minimal stops if at all possible.

As we were driving southbound on the 15 freeway through the Victorville area and into Hesperia, I noticed an ugly sound starting to come from the car. I slowed down a bit and noticed it went away under 60 MPH, but was certainly there over 60MPH. I asked my brother if he could hear it and he could and he also didn’t like the sound of it. My mom in the back seat couldn’t hear it, but she doesn’t have the best hearing anymore.

Well, we were getting to the point where there were not going to have any more city exits for a while. We were now in South Hesperia. I had a make a choice – turn off and see about getting the car checked out or just try keep going and hope it’s nothing – we had probably 90-100 miles to go to get home. As the final exit before the mountains and county came up, I made a quick decision to pull onto the exit.

Here is where the story becomes unusual – just as we are driving on the exit, we notice a huge plume of smoke up ahead, maybe a mile or two in the distance. I was still more concerned about the car then anything else, and we asked around about where we might find a mechanic shop in the area. We were told we had to go back north a few miles on the 15 and we would find some there. That was ok with me as at least we would still be in the city area.

So, we go there, find a mechanic, and he can’t find anything wrong with the car – he even took it out and went over 60 on some roads he knew and didn’t experience the problem anymore. So, he told us it would be OK.

However, by now, the fire we saw had exploded in size and they had actually shut down the southbound 15 freeway just a bit past where we had exited originally! We found out it could be hours and maybe even the next day before it reopened, so we decided to get a hotel room in Hesperia. Watching the news there, we learned one reason it had been shutdown was the smoke was so heavy, there had been 911 calls of smoke inhalation and accidents. The fire was known as the Hill Fire.

What really makes me think is that I feel if I had decided to keep going instead of taking that exit, we might very well have been right in the heart of the fire just as it was exploding out of control and it would have been a miracle not to have either suffered from smoke inhalation or hitting someone else or having another car hit us. I have driven through very thick fog before and I know how dangerous that can be, but I can only imagine how bad thick smoke could be.

It’s really something how just a small sound in the car got me to decide to pull off on the exit and then we ended up learning more about Hesperia and just staying there for a night. The car hasn’t made the noise since and it has been several months.

I don’t know why things happen or whatever, but I think one lesson here is to not get too frustrated when your plans go slightly off-course.


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