When
I was a child, we traveled a lot. Sometimes, we were moving, other
times we were taking road trips. Since my family consistently lived
far away from everyone else, we were the ones who hit the road every
summer for our family vacation. My father didn't enjoy making the
extended trip, so my mother, sister and I went.
Since
we lived in western Nebraska and the family units lived in Tennessee
and Ohio, we'd head east. We were able to save money on
accommodations by staying with friends along the way. My mother was a
sensational planner and would plot out our trip carefully. My sister
and I, when we got old enough, acted as navigators—a job I
eventually took over, because it was apparent fairly early on that my
sister couldn't read a road map to save all our lives.
Mom
liked to try new routes and was always looking for back roads and
shortcuts. She had a strong sense of adventure and wasn't averse to
going new places, enjoying the challenge of finding the way.
Unfortunately, shortcuts aren't always good. We found that out when
traveling through Colorado when I was a teenager. We were on our way
to pick up my friend, Charlotte, who was visiting her grandparents
somewhere in eastern Colorado. From there, we were going to Boulder,
Colorado to a folk dance camp on Lookout Mountain.
With
great excitement, we packed up the Plymouth and struck out to the
great unknown. We'd never been to this particular part of Colorado
and we were all excited. Mom had pored over maps and atlases, trying
to find the perfect route to Charlotte's. She was sure she'd
discovered the greatest shortcut possible, and so it seemed, until
the lovely road petered out and we were stuck on some back country
dirt road.
Colorado
means “red” and we discovered very soon why the state bore this
name. We didn't know it had rained a day or two before—heavily. We
also didn't realize that although the red clay soil of Colorado
LOOKED all right, looks could be deceiving. It was fine for a few
miles, but Murphy's Law kicked in when we were literally in the
middle or nowhere. I've never seen so much nothing in my life!
We
noticed the car was a little sluggish, not holding the road as it
should. Suddenly, we were mired in nearly a foot of red mud! We
couldn't even get out of the car. The mud had us trapped. I was
thinking of climbing out a window, which my mother put a stop to
immediately, when we saw a tractor about a ¼ mile away. This part of
Colorado was nearly as flat as Nebraska, so we were sure he could see
us. We honked and waved to get the farmer's attention.
He
rumbled over a few minutes later, grinning. “You all got stuck, did
ya?”
My
mother explained what happened. It was from this fine man that we
learned about the rain.
“It's
okay, ma'am. We'll get ya out!”
There
were no other people with him. By we, he meant him and his
tractor. He put a chain on us and hitched our car to the tractor. Mom
put the car in gear and gunned the motor. With a little fiddling
about, and lots of flying mud, we were free once more! The kind
farmer went with us for a few miles until the pavement began again.
He wouldn't accept any money for helping us, merely grinned and
tipped his hat. I got the feeling we'd really made his day.
The
rest of the trip to pick up Charlotte, was quiet and uneventful, but
my mom sat down with her grandfather and made sure she asked him what
the best route to Boulder was. We made it to Lighted Lantern Folk
Dance Camp without further incident, but we were shedding chucks of
red mud for nearly a month after that.
We've
had a lot of fun on our road trips, but that was the only time we
ever brought the road home with us.
©
Dellani Oakes 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment