Less than 8,000 miles in and we’ve had three major breakdowns. Today marked our third.

This time we were headed down the New Jersey turnpike when the truck started vibrating terribly. Thankfully, there was a service plaza just a mile away and thankfully it had Chick-fil-A because the kids were hungry.
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We stopped and ate first then drove over towards the exit of the plaza where there was a wide open area to park so I could climb under and take a look. Know what I found? It wasn’t good, that’s for sure. The front drive shaft had a partially busted u-joint. I know for most of my friends, that probably means nothing, but don’t worry I still love you.

​I’ll try to explain a bit. A broken u-joint is one step away from a drive shaft spinning around crazily underneath the truck while traveling 65mph down the highway. That would mean a 10 lb. metal shaft no longer connected where it should be and spinning around at several thousand rpms. It would hit anything and everything underneath the truck – the engine, the floor, the suspension, fuel lines. If it had totally broken through it would have been disaster. And had we driven too much further, that’s probably what would have happened.

But God.

Once again things did not go the way I planned and let me tell you something, I’m learning to be thankful on this trip for things not going my way or the way I had planned for them to. Especially on days like today and yesterday as well.
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Here was my plan for yesterday – leave our campsite in New York by 9am, drive to New Jersey, catch the ferry about 10am to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, finish kids’ junior ranger badges, have lunch at the café, drive to Valley Forge to have dinner and set up camp for the night, ready to explore Valley Forge today.

Here’s what actually happened yesterday – left our campsite in New York at 11:30, drove to New Jersey, had snacks for lunch because we need to make a run to the grocery store and snacks were all we had and the next ferry didn’t board until 1:45, caught the ferry at 2:15pm to Ellis Island, only just finished the junior ranger badge for Ellis Island before barely making it on the last ferry to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty, docked and only had 30 minutes until the island shut down, bought a few postcards, took a few pictures before the island closed, didn’t have time to eat at the café because everything closed down, made it back to our car around 6pm, kids were hangry and I couldn’t find our parking ticket to pay, finally made it out of there and got back on the road about 6:30pm, decided to stop somewhere to eat because everyone was tired and hungry, found a hotel only 15 minutes away and crashed for the night.

Now had, things gone according to my plan yesterday we would have driven an extra 80 miles or so. But, they didn’t and that likely saved us a disastrous outcome. Because had the vibrating started last night, I would have probably ignored it and waited until we got to the campsite to look at it.
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But God. See there’s even more to this most recent break down story of ours. Getting up this morning I had no idea our truck was about to break down, but I did need to figure out where we’d be staying the night. Did we stay at Valley Forge like we’d originally planned or continue on to Gettysburg our next destination and stay there? I couldn’t find a campsite I really liked and in our price range in either area. Finally, after spending at least 45 minutes searching online and even going as far to call a couple places, but with no answer, I had an aha moment. Or as I like to think of it, God whispering in my ear. We were booked for the next 2 nights at Hershey Park campground where we were going to meet my sister and I realized it would be so much easier and cheaper to just extend our stay one more night and camp there tonight. We could still do Valley Forge today, Gettysburg the next day and then Hershey Amusement Park on Sunday. It was a win-win.

Until about 5 miles down the road from the hotel when I had to pull over because of the vibration only to find our driveshaft ruined. But see here’s where things just start to fall into place.

First I call up the place in Buffalo that replaced our radiator and fixed our overheating issue to ask for advice. He tells me I can just remove the front drive shaft, lock the differential and keep driving, but that I should call the shop in Texas who first looked at the truck for the overheating issue because he remembers seeing an invoice I had for the u-joints being replaced.

So I call the shop in Texas. And a guy there says he used to live in Jersey and knows a guy who imports and restores Land Rovers and he’s only about 30 minutes away from us and he should be able to tow us. I think I’ve got it made at this point, so I call up the guy, but only get his out-of-office receptionist who says she can send him an urgent message for me.

Okay, well I figure I’ll just start removing the driveshaft and drive to his place if I can get it out. A couple hours later, I’ve still not heard back from this garage nearby, but I’ve got the driveshaft out and we head his direction.

I get there and no one is around. I call up the number again and get a different out-of-office receptionist who says she’ll send him an urgent message but he should be in the office today and she has no idea where he could of gone. I’ve got to say I don’t have much faith in this messaging system the guy’s got going on, but I don’t have any other options, so we just hang out for a bit, and I’m starting to doubt how well things had been going.

Then in pulls another Land Rover. I’m thinking it’s George, the guy I’m looking for, but nope, just another customer looking for him. We get to chatting and he says, “Well, it’s probably not going to do you any good, but the only other Land Rover guy I know around is all the way over near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.”

Say what! We’re headed to Hershey, PA which is only a short drive from Harrisburg. This just might actually be working out. This other customer even has the guy’s name and number even though it’s been a couple years since he’s taken his vehicle to him.

I call up Trevor at British 4X4 Specialists, leave a message, and we hit the road for Hershey. About an hour or so later, I get a return call from Trevor (still haven’t heard back from George and the ‘urgent’ messages I had sent to him) and he says he’ll be in the shop working on this own truck tomorrow and we can come by then for him to take a look and see what he can do AND he’s actually only 20 minutes or so from Hershey Park Campground the same place I just booked for us to stay tonight!

Fast forward a few days and this ended up being the best possible solution for our break down problem. There is no doubt in my mind, God was watching over us and leading us where we needed to go. If I had booked around Valley Forge or even Gettysburg, things would have been so much more inconvenient as both places are well over an hour from Trevor’s garage. But as God would have it, we ended up right where we needed to be.

See, Trevor and his crew were and are absolutely phenomenal. They had all the parts needed to fix what was broken, plus as they were going over everything to make sure the truck was road-ready they found worn brake pads, a seized brake caliper, along with a few other bits and bobs needing attention and he even had the parts I needed to fix the rear door latch that broke a couple weeks ago when we were up in Vermont! Not only did he have all the parts on hand, but he pulled his crew off their other jobs, and let me and the kids take over his break room for the day, so they could get the truck finished and get us back on the road only a day later than we’d originally planned.

These guys are the best. If you’ve got a Rover and you’re anywhere in the vicinity of central Pennsylvania (or even New Jersey and you need someone more reliable than the local guy George) give Trevor at British 4X4 Specialists a call 717-287-3586. I would trust him with our Beastie any day.

Now, we didn’t get to see everything I’d wanted due to our little detour, namely Valley Forge and Gettysburg. We’d only had time to drive through both places with no time to explore. But with the way things worked out to get the truck fixed, my type A personality is coming to terms with the situation and is practicing being grateful for the turn of events.

I’m hoping this will be the last garage we have to visit on our trip, but something in my gut tells me it won’t be. Not with the track record this truck has. I think it’s spent just as much time in the shop as it has out of it the last year, and I’m not expecting it to change any time soon.