An Amish Winter Trip Gone Wrong (Part 3): Everything Starts Going Wrong

Author Haley Straw returns today with part 3 of a new winter-themed series, drawing on one of her more challenging experiences as an Amish taxi driver. Part 1 is here and part 2 here, if you missed them.

Luck is when preparedness meets opportunity. – Earl Nightingale

We were living with my mother-in-law while building our house. By the time I finished packing, there were bags lined up by the front door like I was leaving for a week instead of a day.

A cosmetic bag.
A backpack with clothes and pajamas.
My computer bag.
My crochet bag (I never leave home without it).
A cooler full of snacks.

She sat in her chair watching me — heated blanket on her lap, a cat curled at her feet, a word-search puzzle in her hands. I gave her a sheepish grin.

“It’s only a day trip,” I said. “But anything can happen.”

That wasn’t optimism. That was experience.

The night before we were supposed to leave, Allen couldn’t get our long-distance van started. Carl — our main road van — had over 500,000 miles on him. With that kind of mileage, low oil pressure was normal. I always warmed the engine before driving. It had never failed us.

But this wasn’t normal cold.

It was –12°F, with a –33°F wind chill. The oil pressure froze the engine solid.

Allen needed to get Carl running, drive him to the farm, put on studded tires, and attach the cargo box for the Wisconsin trip. The engine started once… then died. After that, nothing.

For hours, Allen tried everything. He even set a salamander heater on the engine, hoping heat would bring it back to life.

It didn’t.

Most people would have stopped right there.
Most people would have canceled the trip altogether.

We didn’t.

We had committed.

With Carl out of commission, Allen turned to our last working van — his construction crew van. Kenny. (Yes, I name the vans.)

He drove it to the farm, reinstalled the benches for fifteen passengers, cleaned out construction debris, scrubbed the interior, vacuumed it, and ran it through the car wash. Then he checked the tires, fluids, and engine.

He finished at 1:00 a.m.

At 5:00 a.m., after four hours of sleep, he tried one last time to start Carl.

Nothing. Not even a click.

Carl was towed to a mechanic friend. The trip would be made in Kenny.

As the saying goes, “If you can’t have the best of everything, make the best of everything you have.”
The Amish expected us at 10:30 a.m.

We left the house at 10:30 a.m.

It was a forty-five minute drive, so we were late.

The first man we picked up, Albert, sat behind us with his two-year-old son and said,
“Oh. I thought you were supposed to be here at 10:30.”

I ignored it.

Then Albert made us wait twenty minutes while his family finished getting ready.

My patience was already thin.

The winding dirt roads didn’t agree with his little boy.

“Oh no!” Albert yelled.

I turned around just in time to see it — orange vomit, everywhere.

Albert wrapped his arms around the boy and pushed him toward me.

I shook my head and leaned back.

No.

I grabbed my peppermint essential oil and breathed it in slowly while the boy continued emptying his stomach. Allen handed paper towels to the boy’s mother. I passed back a Walmart bag.

Albert took the boy inside the next house on our pickup route to clean him up.

I sat there, jaw clenched, thinking: We haven’t even left yet.

Stop after stop, we waited. Six houses. Twenty minutes here. Fifteen there.

By the time we reached Marvin and Anna’s house, an hour and a half had passed.

They were ready.

After loading them, we finally headed north toward Wisconsin.

I had a headache from lack of sleep. Allen drove first. I barely paid attention to who got in or out — just noticed children shifting between homes, which reassured me we weren’t overloaded.

I was wrong.

But I didn’t know it yet.

I was tired. I was irritated. And I was done trying to be pleasant.

I shoved Allen’s hoodie into the door crack, pulled my coat over my head, and shut my eyes.

We hadn’t even hit the interstate yet.

And already, everything felt off.

Haley Straw is a barefoot Amish taxi driver with a storyteller’s heart and a knack for gathering the kinds of tales the Amish share on long, quiet night drives. She tells these stories the way she experienced them —with raw honesty, a healthy dose of fear, and the hard-won wisdom that comes from surviving the storm. This winter series is drawn from her book Amish Christmas Mishaps. You can find her books, free Amish-inspired goodies, and more at haleystraw.com.