What a Way to Start a Vacation!
One of the perks you get when you homeschool is to take vacations when other families are in school, this makes for less crowds and often better deals. We decided to take a small 2 night/ 3 day mini-vacation up to Disney-world last week. It is less than a 3 hour drive from our home. Tristan did not remember Typhoon Lagoon and it is after Animal Kingdom and Epcot Center my favorite place in Disney-world. Since it has been really hot and we had a short break from Wellington Little League and Travel baseball we jumped at the chance of the Florida Resident getaway.
The plan was to get to Typhoon Lagoon before they opened to be in line to run to our favorite shady spot to plant our towels and claim our chairs. We left our house at about 5:30 a.m., planning to get to Disney's Port Orleans ( love the surroundings and quiet environment of that resort for quick in and outs) by 7:30 and be in line at Typhoon at 8:30 a.m. at the latest. 
We made great time on the Florida Turnpike. At 7:00 a.m. only 17 miles south of the Osceola Parkway exit our Mercedes started to have some issues. Suddenly, the computer on the dashboard started going haywire. It was blasting all kinds of malfunctions like from those alien encounter movies. It was saying that our EPS has malfunctioned. We kept driving as I started to look up online what to do and figure out what was going on.
Then the computer started saying that we were out of gas when we had nearly a full tank, that we were having brake issues when we had new brakes and then it said our car was overheating. All of the dashboard visuals were no longer showing anything. It was pretty scary. The people on line that this had happened to all said that if we stop the car, it won't start again.
So we wanted to keep driving. But then, we were nudged by that still small voice that we had to pull over. So we did. Sure enough, the car would not start again. The gears were locked and you could not even override the gears to put the car into neutral.
We have Allstate Emergency Road Service- the lady that was helping us had to search for nearly an hour- going back and forth with towing companies to find one who not only had a flat bed but also had a king cab to fit four of us. At one point the lady at Allstate says- I could call a cab for two of you and the other two can go in the towing company's truck cab. I asked her where she was located, it was Illinois near Chicago. Well, we are in the country side of St Cloud- we don't have cabs here like they do in Chicago! That was not an option.
3 hours later- right when we were about to call in quits on Allstate road service, not one but three tow trucks showed up. Only one of the companies had the right equipment for our car so we chose them.
Obviously we were not going to make it in time to get to Typhoon Lagoon. Fortunately we were able to add on a day to our stay so that the kids could still go to both Typhoon Lagoon and Animal Kingdom.
We went to the auto repair company with the tow truck company- the same person owned both companies- Central State Automotive. After looking at the car, the mechanic said he was going to need it for a while. One of the tow truck drivers gave us a ride to Enterprise so we could get a car rental.
We did not get to Port Orleans resort in Disney-world until after 1 p.m.
Later that evening, the mechanic called and told us that our car had to be towed to the Mercedes dealership in Orlando because the computer issues could only be replaced by a Mercedes service. At least the entire time the car was being worked on we were able to enjoy some time on our mini-vacation.
It ended up that the entire brake pump had to be replaced that controlled all the brake systems in the car along with the computer that runs that system. We were very blessed to have pulled over because had we kept driving, we would not have had a brake system and would not be able to stop. Another reason not to believe everything you read on the internet!
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