What comes to your mind when you hear the phrase “making memories”? When I think of making memories, I think of events that happen in someone’s life. Through the event(s) something happens that is so big or memorable that it will be something that you will never forget.
Sometimes making memories are planned events, like when I asked my wife, Tonya, to marry me. I planned out the whole event with a nice dinner, limo ride, watching the movie “The Princess Bride” and visiting our parents with the news. I know that it was a memory for her since it was the last romantic thing I have ever done. “Inconceivable!”
Other times, memories are made that are not planned, For example, when you get your shorts pulled down at the Dairy Treat when you are in junior high by a classmate.
It was definitely not planned by me but it is a memory that I will never forget. Thanks again, Tim Landis. I have been scarred for life.
So, in the summer of 2021 my wife and I took our three daughters and their husbands out west. We were celebrating my retirement from teaching. If you know anything about our family, it is crazy enough that you don’t need a major event like a big trip out west to make memories. I knew there would be many along the way.
It wasn’t a great trip. It was an awesome trip. We went to Sedona, the Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, Bryce Canyon, Arches National Park, Horseshoe Bend, Coral Reef National Park, Dead Horse State Park, Lake Powell, Coral Pink Sands Dune State Park, Peek-a-boo Canyon and Canyonlands National Park.
For the trip, we rented two SUVs since we had eight people in the party. We made many great memories along the way. There was one memory that stood out from the others and it took place in Canyonlands National Park.
Over the years one of the things that I love to do is ride a road bike. Because of being a biker, I notice slopes of roads while I am driving. Don’t know why but it is one of my many talents.
As we were traveling to the park in the morning, I noticed that for the most part we were going up in elevation. There were a few spots that were steeper but for the most part it was just a gentle slope up.
Making that observation is like having useless trivia knowledge. Little did I know that observation would help us later in the day.
We ended up in the park early and we went on a couple of different hikes in the park. First we did the Grand View Point Overlook hike. It gave you a great view of the canyon along the rim.
After the first hike, we did the Mesa Arch hike that took us up close and personal to the Mesa Arch. When we were done with the hike, we went back and got in the SUV’s to go do some more exploring.
The next place that we were going to go to was a little over 5 miles away. As we were about to make the turn to go to our next stop, Maddie, our oldest daughter, called over the walkie talkie that they were down to 19 miles of gas.
First, I was taken back that a car load of young adults could not check a gas gauge. Next, I asked her if she was serious. Needless to say, she was being serious.
Side note: we bought a couple of walkie talkies since we would be traveling in areas that would have spotty cell service at best. It was one of the best investments we made on the trip.
She informed us that they had 19 miles of gas. 19 miles of gas many times is not an issue for people since there are tens of thousands of gas stations all over the place.
The issue that we had was that the nearest gas station was 30 miles away from where we were located in the park. Houston we have a problem!
I used to like to teach math in school and I knew that those numbers don’t match up. So, we ended our time in the park. The objective now was to get the car to the gas station without running out of gas.
The math was not in our favor but I knew that we had one thing going for us. That was the fact that it was going to be downhill most of the way. Literally and figuratively!
I was leading the way and they were behind us. We would check in on them every few minutes to see where they were on gas. Through the laughter we would get an update.
There were times on the road that had long straight stretches that were downhill. During these stretches I had to speed up because they were right on my tail. They would call over the walkie talkie and tell me to speed up.
You would think that speeding up would burn more gas and that is true but what they were doing was putting the car in neutral and coasting.
As time passed, we were getting closer and closer to our destination. We were finally on the last stretch of SR 313. We finally made it to highway 191 but it was still a half a mile to the Chevron station. Our goal was in sight.
All I could imagine at this point was pulling out on the busy road and seeing them running out of gas and being stranded in the middle of a busy highway.
We made the turn and traveled down the road and both cars pulled into the station. They pulled up to the pump. We all got out of the cars and had a good laugh.
They informed us that they had put it in neutral and coasted for 10 miles of the trip. They also only had one mile left according to the gas gauge.
The adventure was in the books and a memory was made.
