1st Rest Stop Overnighter

Anyone who has traveled for any extended period of time knows that something will go wrong before long. Since leaving Cherokee, NC we have been plagued by transmission problems. While we were cruising down the road, an indicator message pops up saying that our transmission is too hot, pull over and idle. Well thank God we were passing a rest stop and were immediately able to pull over in a safe place. Chris checked the transmission fluid and all seemed good and so we waited for the transmission to cool off and start back on our journey. Slowly taking off, the transmission bumped very hard into first gear and then slightly less into second and so we were very concerned. We googled to find the closest dealership that could get us in quickly and were able to find one about 18 miles away. We cautiously watched the transmission temp the whole way there and everything seemed fine. Well long story short.....$237 dollars later we have new transmission fluid and we are off again. We traveled for a whole day without problems but then it started happening again the next day. My brother (a shade tree mechanic) told us that our Suburban doesn't really have a good enough transmission cooler to haul our camper for long distances and that we really need to add an extra cooler but that will have to wait until we get to our next destination. So getting to the night at the rest stop. We were driving along yesterday in the 103 degree heat with four windows down and I was in a very bad mood. I will be honest and say I had a slight breakdown of sorts but I was able to pull myself together after getting into the very back seat, by myself, and praying. Chris must have known what I needed because he instantly turned our satellite radio onto the Joel Osteen channel. After I pulled myself together, I was able to rationally look at the situation and realize that it wasn't as bad as it seemed. Along the way we had to pull over about 5 times in order for the transmission to cool down and after a while it was clear we were not going to make it to our intended KOA stop for the night. We were all so tired and grumpy that Chris and I decided it would be best to stop at the closest rest stop and spend the night. We covered the windows with towels and put a egg crate mattress across the window in the front, left the truck running, took some simply sleep, covered up and went to sleep. Chris said that I snored like a chain saw the whole night and that he was so worried that he couldn't sleep but a few hours. All in all we were able to reschedule our KOA stop for the next night and we made it safely through our first night sleeping in a rest stop and no one got murdered :)