Water can rescue you from your Montana nightmare

Danielle Switalski

My worst Montana nightmare actually came true last week. My friend Brandie picked me up from Spokane Airport last Monday after I returned from visiting my family in Milwaukee for Thanksgiving, and her car broke down in the middle of Lookout Pass with, of course, no cell phone service on either of our phones.

Before I left for Montana, every person in my family pulled me aside to tell me tips on what to do should I break down in the middle of nowhere. I listened intently, but unfortunately did not bother to remember any of their advice as I had just ordered AAA and figured they can solve all my car problems should I have them because you know, “it saves time, money and worries,” never once thinking I would ever be stuck without my faithful cell phone service.

So, there we sat on the side of the highway, her engine letting off a fair amount of steam. We stared at each other for a good ten minutes, me letting out an awkward chuckle saying, “Well, hey this sucks!”

I find in times of crisis, the fight or flight cliché for human reactions never really applied to me. By no means do I fight, but then I don’t fly either, rather, I just kind of sit there chuckling to myself as my mind immediately pictures me sitting on a beach somewhere.

When I snapped back to reality, I thought this was a good time to tell Brandie the story of when I was 16 and coming back from dance class, singing to Jewel a little too loudly and accidentally rammed my dad’s midlife crisis Camaro into our garage. Not the best time for this story, but since I didn’t have cell phone service to text someone a reminder of this fateful day in high school, I thought it would lighten the mood of our current situation. Brandie was acting a lot more calmly than my dad acted when I told him about the Camaro. I honestly thought his head was going to pop off. Brandie just looked uncomfortable and nervous.

Anyways, after walking up and down the highway for a while trying to find cell phone service and freezing our butts off, a man came and saved the day.

It turns out Brandie’s thermostat was broken and he filled her engine with a jug of water and pointed us to the nearest gas station to get more. I never would have thought to carry a jug of water in my car. Thoughts of my uncle floated clearly back to my mind of the day he showed me how to change a flat tire this past August and also made a list of what to keep in my car in case I break down in Montana. I do vaguely remember him saying something about water, but I assumed it was a bottle of water in case I got thirsty because it was about 90 degrees that day.

I made a mental note to check this list should I ever make it home alive and put everything he wrote on it in my car, provided I can even find the list in my mess of an apartment.

We finally made it home after a painful afternoon. The first thing I did was tear apart my apartment and find my uncle’s list of items I should keep in my car.

Folks, winter is upon us and we all need to prepare for the possibility of breaking down, no cell phone to save the day. Also, keep water in your car, although I imagine with the temperature right now it would freeze in about five minutes, but on the other hand, it could also save the day.

If you have winter weather driving tips you’d like to share e-mail Reporter@vp-mi.com