Therefore, when we have hard times happen to us, we can choose to look at it and see all the horrible things that happen, or we can choose to look for the miracles that are there.
This weekend we experienced a day of miracles.
A few weeks ago the hubs decided we should go camping. We were going to Ferron Reservoir, which is a campground that my grandparents, and their decedents have been going to at least all of their married life. The hubs had heard a lot about this place, but had never been there. He was looking for a place to go camping saw it on the map, and thought "why not". He invited some of his coworkers to join us, and we planned to go camping Friday through Monday.
On Friday we packed all of our gear into our van, and our pop-up trailer. Loaded the canoe on top of the pop-up and hit the road. Google maps told us it should take us about two and a half hours. We left our home about 1:30/2:00 in the afternoon. We were having a great drive, until we passes Manti, where google maps told us to turn off of the main road. There was this dirt road that seemed to just suddenly appear in the midst of the farm land. We turned onto it, and then realized it was really rough and rocky. The hubs expressed a little concern, but my thought was, "we are towing a trailer, this road is really narrow, we can't turn around so all we can do is go forward." So we went forward up the side of the mountain until it got so steep and bumpy our van could go no farther.
At this point the hubs decided to try to back down the mountain. Which was working ok, until the trailer started to go off the side of the road. Then it didn't seem to matter what he tried, it just kept getting worse, until the trailer jackknifed. Scooter recalled the time a couple years ago that we had van trouble on a trip and called a tow truck. He asked if a tow truck could help us now. We couldn't think of any way that could help.
The hubs got out of the van and surveyed the scene from the outside. He decided that if he got me, Cinderella, and Guy out there to help him, and we each took a corner of the trailer and he unhooked it, we could turn it around. I thought this sounded like a good idea. Not sure why I thought it was a good idea to have 4 people (2 adults and 2 teens) try to support a 2 ton trailer on a road that even our van was having trouble managing the trailer on, but I did. Any way we had Guy, Cinderella and me on the back of the trailer, and the hubs up by the hitch. He unhitched the trailer and we got it to move a little, but the front wheels were in a rut. So the hubs had Cinderella get an empty box from the van, collapse it, tear it apart and put it under the front wheels.
Once she did that the trailer moved. I moved the opposite direction I was expecting it to go, and hurtled towards the hubs. That is when our first miracle happened. I was so terrified that he was going to get ran over, but the hitch ran into a ceder bush, and stopped.
For some reason, we decided to try again. The hubs cut the ceder to it would be out of the way, and then we had the trailer tumbling towards 3 of us, because Cinderella and I moved to the front to help him. That was another terrifying moment to have something so heavy I knew I couldn't push it way tumbling it's way towards me. Now we had our second miracle. Another ceder bush.
This time we used more reason that we had before and decided we needed some help. We decided to try Scooters suggestion and call a tow truck.
3rd miracle, we had cell reception enough to find a towing company and get a truck to come help us. The man from the towing company showed up with a truck with a wench on the back.
He put big rocks behind his wheels, hooked the wench up to the axle, and pulled out the trailer. It sustained some damage, but we were able to rescue it with his help. That was our 4th miracle. When the trailer slammed into the ceders the jack attachment near the hitch got all bent out of shape. So it took some time to get the trailer, and van into a position where we could hook it back up again.
The tow truck guy told us we couldn't access where we were going from the side of the mountain we were on. We would need to go down to I 70 and over to Emery County to get up. We thanked him and got on our way. By this time I had moved farther back in the van to keep kiddo's from fighting. When we got on the paved road again, I thought the trailer was possibly making a weird noise, but wasn't sure if it always sounded like that, and I just usually didn't hear it. I asked the boys behind me, they looked back towards it and told me the canoe strap looked looser. We tried to tell the hubs, but he was so stressed at this point, I'm not sure he heard.
Then there was this truck that kept acting like it was trying to pass us. The hubs was really frazzled, because we were in a no passing zone. He pulled off to the side of the road to get out of the way. The truck pulled up on our side, and told us that we had blown a tire on our trailer, and it was sparking like crazy and going to start a fire. He asked if we had what we needed to change the tire. The hubs said "yes we have a spare," and the guy drove off. The hubs got out of the car and went to look. I went out to help him a couple of minutes later. He was leaning dejectedly against the side of the trailer. The wheel was stripped completely down to the rim. He told me he couldn't find a jack, or tire iron. Our van is new enough to us, that we didn't know where to even start looking in it, plus it was loaded down with kids and stuff. While we were wondering what to do, a pickup pulled off the road behind us. A woman got out and asked if we needed some help. She had the tire iron, but not a jack. She was our 5th miracle.
Our 6th miracle was that I had enough cell reception to get in touch with my dad, who we had bought the trailer from, and the 7th miracle was that my mom remembered a jack being in the trailer. It took a while but we were able to get the tire fixed and get back on the road.
We stopped at a burger place in Gunnison for dinner (yes it was dinner time by then). We decided to eat on the road so we could get to our campsite earlier. Unfortunately the hubs had got a salad and couldn't eat and drive at the same time. So a while later he pulled up to a rest stop so he could eat, and we could do potty breaks. When we got everyone all in the car and ready to go, the car wouldn't start. 8th miracle, there was a moving truck parked next to us, that was able to get us jumped so we could get back on the road.
However by this time we were getting low on gas. We needed to stop. We got to the town of Ferron, and the hubs pulled over, and looked at his phone for a gas station. Google maps said their wasn't another gas station until Castle Dale. This would take us a while, and we hoped we had enough gas to get there. Then miracle 8. We saw a gas station right off the road once we got started going again. As soon as the hubs pulled the van into the parking lot of the gas station, the electrical on the van completely died. We were able to fill up gas but knew it wouldn't be wise to head up the mountain that night. Turned out the gas station was right in front of a hotel/motel. I went to see if we could get some rooms for the night. But I couldn't find a place to check in, or a clerk. I suggested if we could find a trailer park, we might be able to pitch for the night, then figure things out in the morning.
The hubs looked on his phone and found a possibility. This was our next miracle. The hubs called the number. The man who answered, told us he had room, came and jumped us so we could get there, called his buddy who owns a shop in Price that could help us, and let us stay the night for free. The next morning he jumped us again, and got us on our way to Price. In Price we were able to discover our problem was our battery not our alternator. Which was good news. They were able to get a new battery put in for us while we had a picnic lunch. At this point we needed to make a decision as to weather to try to get up the mountain or head for home. We had decided to head for home, when the hubs got a text from one of his co-workers, asking if he was alive.
He told us the road up was dirt, but well maintained, and he would even come tow our trailer up for us if we wanted him to. Most of the kids still wanted to go camping so after some debate we decided to try it. We successfully made it up the mountain about 26 hours after we left home. And we had a great time with the rest of the weekend. The kids really enjoyed going out on the lake in the canoe. We all really enjoyed interacting with our friends we were camping with. Overall it was a great experience.
