Vacation and the Parting of the Red Sea

Wanda and I had planned a Thanksgiving vacation in 1977. Since we had never flown on an airplane together, we decided we wanted to fly from Pennsylvania to California.
While I was working on my lathe one day at work, around the first of September, the voice spoke to me again in my head. This time the voice told me to take our vacation ‘NOW!’ I was told to go by car instead of by airplane.

“No, Lord, we want to fly together.”

The voice was insistent that we should go by car and that we needed to leave now. I had experienced this voice before. Immediately, I shut off my machine and went into the office to ask if they would let me have my vacation starting the next day. I was told, ‘yes’ and that my vacation check would be ready for me to pick up at quitting time.
The Lord had to have been in this because there wasn’t any fuss about me taking off so quickly and getting my paycheck.

At that time, Wanda was working at a truck stop restaurant. She wanted to quit her job because there was an old man that worked there that always gave her a hard time.
I went home to Wanda after work and said to her, “Let’s get packed up tonight, we are leaving tomorrow for California.” I explained what the voice told me, but she said, “We wanted to fly.”
Wanda didn’t argue with me, even though we didn’t understand why we needed to leave right away and go by car. Both of us trusted the voice in my head and didn’t want to question it.
Wanda quit her job that night. She worked nights in the kitchen. They told her they had another person that would take her place.

Parting of the Red Sea

We left the next day in our little blue Pinto, for California on Highway 80. While driving through Nevada, we saw a huge rain storm ahead of us. It was coming straight at us. The landscape was all desert. Nothing was on either side of us except desert.
Just before the storm hit us, the rain clouds split open and the sun shone brightly down the middle of the highway. It was raining very hard on both sides of us. We went through the middle of the storm nice and dry with the sun in our face, but on both sides of the highway, the storm was fierce.

When we arrived in Hayward, we visited with Wanda’s parents. We also visited with Keith and Harold and their families.
Leaving California, we headed up to Brush Prairie, Washington to Ronald’s horse ranch to visit him.
On the way back to Pennsylvania, Wanda said, “I want to go down to Oklahoma to visit my brothers.” She had five brothers living there at the time. We stopped in Tulsa and saw her family that lived in that area. The next day we went to Springfield, Missouri to visit her brother Glen’s farm and spent the night there with him and his family.
Traveling on, we went to Saint Louis up Highway 70 to Indianapolis, then to Columbus, Ohio.
As we traveled down a highway in Ohio, the road was a two lane highway and I was going faster than I should have been driving. I started to pass another car. At the time, we were going upgrade. The voice in my head spoke again and told me to slow down. I immediately took my foot off the gas and pulled in behind the car in front of me. As we went over the top of the grade, there was a state trooper with his radar gun aimed at us.
If I didn’t slow down when I heard the voice, I would have had a speeding ticket.

We arrived back home on the weekend. The next weekend on Sunday, we went to church. After church, we went home to watch the Oakland Raider’s football game. They were our favorite team at the time because we were from the Oakland, California area. While we were watching the game, the phone rang. It was the restaurant and Wanda was asked if she would go in to work that night, because the person that took her place fell and broke his arm. Wanda told them that she would work until they could find someone else to take her place.
Wanda went into work and I went with her. They let me be there in the kitchen or in the dinning room with her whenever I wanted. Wanda got a big piece of chocolate cake, which she loved. We sat and shared it. After we ate it, she had to get back to work.
When we went back into the kitchen, Wanda told me that I should go on home and get to bed because I had to go to work the next day. I went out the back door, got into my car and went on home. It was about four miles to home from the restaurant. As I opened the door, the phone was ringing, but before I could pick it up, it stopped ringing. I went on to bed. The phone started ringing again. I got it this time and it was the cook at the restaurant. He said, “The ambulance just took your wife to the hospital.” He told me that as soon as I went out the door, Wanda grabbed her neck and fell to the floor.
I quickly got dressed and went to the hospital. At the hospital, I told them who I was. In a little while, the doctor came out and said that they thought my wife was brain dead. He said that Wanda was on oxygen and that I should go home and come back in the morning after they know more about her condition.
I went back the next morning and they let me see her. After that, the doctor said they would take her off of oxygen and check her. A short time later, the doctor came out to tell me that Wanda was dead.

Now I know why the Lord wanted me to drive our car and leave immediately on our vacation. Wanda was able to see her whole family before she died. If we had waited to take the airplane, she would have missed seeing a lot of her loved ones and they her. The Lord knew that He was taking her to her heavenly home to be with Him.
Dad