First Car Trip That I Remember!!!

I was pretty young when we took a trip to Winter Garden, Florida to visit my Uncle Bill and Aunt Mae Ellen Northey. I don't remember who all went with us. I know Momma and Daddy and of course Wayne and Juanita. I think Granny Northey was  probably with us as well, maybe Uncle Tommy Northey, not sure though.
I don't think we had had the car very long and it was to be a long trip to undertake to an unknown place. I do know that today even with interstate highways its takes 8 or 9 hours or more, so I am sure it took us a long while. I remember it being night time and I simply could not go to sleep riding (still can't). I could hear every time the tires rolled over the slightest bump.
The car had a long (probably 3 feet tall) gear stick in the middle of the floor board in front of the front seat. For some reason I was sitting there, straddling the gear stick. (It is called a straight shift today). Well we were just tooling along, everyone was sleeping or trying except me and Daddy.  All of a sudden we were running off the road through a ditch and it looked like a deep hole (possibly a lake) that we were heading straight for, but thank God there was a fence that stopped us before we went all the way.
Scared is a mild word to describe how we all felt. We were terrified !!! We were out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night!!!It was dark, no lights anywhere that we could see. I don't know how far it was to a town , but some how Daddy got ahold of a wrecker and got the car towed in and I guess we rode in the car, but I am not sure how we got to the town.
The thing that caused us to run off the road was a broken tire rod or tire rod end, anyway when that thing broke, Daddy could not longer control the car. Anyway they fixed it and we reached our destination without anymore accidents that I remember.
God was really with us country bumpkins off on a long road trip that night!!! If that fence had not been there, we might not be here today! No one was hurt that I know of. I do know that my chin hit that big old gear stick and my teeth felt funny and tingly for many years, but no permanent damage that I know of.  We made several trips to Winter Garden,Florida over the years, no more mishaps that I remember.
I will tell more about Uncle Bill and Aunt Mae Ellen as we go along.