Modern Day Miracles

I was going to start this post out by going into details about how Friday turned in to be one of the worst days of my life. Today is Sunday and I've had a couple of days to re-look at Friday and I have come away realizing how blessed our family was on Friday and how we experienced a few Modern Day Miracles.

We have a group of friends that get together once a month for dinner. Instead of getting together in August for dinner, we have been planning for the last couple of months to go camping this weekend and get in "one more" outing with the kids before school starts.

Throughout the week, Dave and I really hadn't chatted much about our plans for the weekend. I was feeling a bit down about the situation because I hadn't felt like I had gotten things under control at the house since the Welker reunion the week before and the thought of "tenting it" this soon after the reunion just didn't seem appealing.

Wednesday night/Thursday morning I came down with a flu bug and could not even lift my head off the pillow until around 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon. When Dave came home from work, we needed to finally come to a decision about what we were going to do for the weekend. Were we going camping Friday and Saturday nights or just Saturday? Were we going to borrow a camp trailer that had been offered to us or were we going to "tent it"? A rash decision was made at 6 p.m. that we were going to borrow the trailer and we were going to leave for camping on Friday. So.....flu and all we rallied together and got things in motion.

After work on Friday, I ran to the store to pick up the groceries we needed and then to pick up the girls from Traci's. Somewhere during work and shopping, Dave called and said that Nate had offered his Excursion for us to take on the camp trip instead of taking our truck. The Excursion would make for a little "nicer" ride. Some of you know that Nate's Excursion broke down at the family reunion and it was fixed and ready to leave the shop on Friday so in order for us to take the Excursion, we needed to go pick it up from the fix-it shop in Amalga. I informed Dave that he was the one that needed to make the decision whether or not to take the Excursion because he was the one driving and he'd be the one having to fix it if it broke down along the way. As the girls and I were driving home, Dave called again and said he was on his way to Amalga to pick up the Excursion to save time.

The plan was to be at Chris and Sue Benson's in Smithfield by 5 p.m. so we could tandem drive with everyone to Lava. We were camping up on Sue's Grandpa's property in the mountains of Lava. Well, as things always go, we didn't leave Mendon until 6:15, which meant we were heading to Lava via valley view highway connecting us to the freeway instead of going up through Smithfield.

As we're heading over by Beaver Dam, the Excursion pulls the first hill just fine but as we start the next hill it bottoms out and is only pulling the hill at 25 mph, which is totally not right with a diesel motor which has a turbo. Dave says, "Nope. We're not taking the Excursion. We're turning around and going to get our truck."

As we turn around and head back for Amalga, Dave calls Nate and they do the "chat" about the vehicle. As we're driving back to Amalga, the Excursion is doing great on the flat roads. It's something to do with pulling a load over the hills.

We get to the fix-it shop and Dave goes in and chats with the mechanic. Let me just say that after an hour in Amalga and two new fuel filters later we are on the road again with the Excursion heading to Valley View to try once more. We hit the first hill......things are not good. It's only pulling at a mere 25 mph. Again, Dave is on the phone with Nate and they're trying to figure out what's wrong and whether or not we keep going or turn around once more. We keep driving and end up stopping at the Riverside Corner grocery store because by now it's 8:30 p.m. and the girls haven't had anything for dinner. I get all of the girls pottied and return to order food and find out that Dave and Nate have decided that we shouldn't continue with the Excursion and we are waiting here at the grocery store for Nate to bring us another truck. Yep, we are now going to be driving Bryce's truck. Bryce is Chris Benson's brother. Through Dave's conversations with Nate he had also been talking to Chris and keeping them informed as to where we were. Somewhere in the conversations it was decided that we would bring Bryce's truck. It would pull the trailer easier than our green truck and it was quicker to get this truck from Wellsville than to get our truck from Amalga.

Nate gets to the store around 9 p.m. and we swap over to the new truck. As we're leaving the grocery store, we get a phone call from Dave's sister Erin asking "police" questions because she has just wrecked her car down in Salt Lake. An intoxicated driver ran a red light and ran into Erin's car. It's now around 9:30 and we're off heading to Lava. As we were sitting and waiting for the other truck, Dave and I had been chatting about what to do. Do we go home? Do we continue on? Do we go to Dayton and sleep in Pete and Tif's driveway? Looking back now, which I know hindsight is 20/20, I wish I would have listened closer to the "still small voice" that said go home. I heard the voice and I should have pressed further and harder with Dave to go home but it's one of those things where sometimes they like to "press forward" and you just go along for the ride. Nothing was said as to what our final decision was as we pulled away from the grocery store but Dave turned towards Lava and so it was. We were on our way.

Dave chatted with Erin again along our way to make sure things were going alright on her end and he told her to call us when it was over so we knew all was alright. The ride to Lava was quiet in the truck with everyone enjoying Barbie Island Princess. Nicole fell to sleep and the other two watched the movie and eventually Ashely gave in to sleep.

We reached Lava and met Chris at the gate to let us through onto the private property so we could continue to get up to Sue's Grandpa's property. As we're waiting, we get another call from Erin to find that she's alright and did have her car towed but it was definitely not her fault and the driver of the other car has been arrested.

We get through the gate and are waiting for Chris to turn his truck around so we can follow him up the hill. We cross the cattle guard and all of a sudden there is this huge thud. We look in the mirrors and the trailer has come off the truck and is rolling back down the hill. Dave jumps out and is chasing the trailer down the hill. I jump out and am immediately going into shock. THIS IS NOT OUR TRAILER! This cannot be happening. THIS IS NOT OUR TRAILER. I know I was screaming this out loud. By now I have woken up the two girls and they are crying and Hannah is also going into panic mode. Chris and Jason (another friend) heard the thud and saw that we had stopped so they came back to see what was going on. Dave comes up to me and tries to calm me down so I can work to calm the girls down. I pull myself together and get to Hannah's side of the truck and reach through to hold Ashley's hand. I tell the girls that we need to say a prayer to calm ourselves down and to pull things together. I uttered a quick prayer with the girls and we were able to calm ourselves down.

As I finished with the prayer, Dave comes to my side and tells me that I need to walk down and see the trailer to see how blessed we have been. There is minimal and I mean minimal damage to the trailer. It's tipped a little crooked and is going to take some work to get it hooked back up so it doesn't tip on it's side but the minimal damage is incredible.

The trailer rolled backward down the hill about 20 yards and came to rest on a metal post holding up a barbed wire fence. Who would have known that a small metal post could have stopped a 24' camper trailer instead of the trailer knocking down the post and fence.

Before walking down to see the trailer and while I was in shock, I told Dave that I wanted to go home. I had had enough. It had been a very trying evening trying to go camping and this ended up being the icing on the cake. I WANTED TO GO HOME! However, there was one problem. There was no where to turn around on the dirt road. The only way was up and I didn't want to go this way anymore!

It took the men around 45 minutes to work through getting the trailer hooked back up to the truck and back even on the road without tipping it on it's side. We were back in the truck and very humble and quiet and we inched our way up the steep and I mean steep incline to the camp site. We arrived and began setting up our trailer at 1 a.m.

As Dave and the other men had time to look things over once at the camp site, it was noticed that the trailer was never hooked correctly to the truck. Even though this was the case, Dave and I began realized how extremely lucky we were. What would have happened if the trailer would have come off on the freeway when we were doing 65 mph? The trailer more than likely would have been totaled and what if it hit someone else and harmed them or even killed them? What if the trailer would have come off another 250 feet up the dirt road? The trailer would have gone off a cliff and been totaled.

As we look back, there was only one place the trailer could have come off and have everything come out as a miracle and this was the place it needed to be. I remember Sue's Grandpa walking up to me as they were trying to hook the trailer back up to the truck and telling me how lucky we were and how someone must have been watching over us because any further up and we'd be bringing the trailer up the side of the mountain in pieces. Everyone at the camp kept agreeing that we were truly blessed on this night. I wish I would have had my camera with me to take pictures the next day because words cannot express how steep this drive was to the top. I don't even think the pictures could have done it justice. Another gentleman joined our group on Saturday after returning from girl's camp and his first comment was, "Where's the couple that had Heavenly Father watching out for them last night?" This goes to show that it was not only us that realized the miracle we had been given. The entire group also realized it.

What has this experience given our family? One thing for sure is we (me, Dave and even Hannah) have a stronger testimony in the power of prayer. As we were getting ready to pull out of the driveway Friday night, Hannah jumped up in the back of the Excursion and reminded us to have prayer. How thankful I am to know that we have established this habit as a family to have prayer prior to leaving for a trip and asking for the blessings to keep us safe as we travel. I love Hannah's small testimony and faith in knowing that Heavenly Father will listen and protect us. Hannah commented later as the events were over that it was a good thing we said our prayer before leaving home.

Dave and I have also come away knowing that modern day miracles do exist and we were given the blessing of having one upon our family this night. We can see how terrible things could have been had the trailer come off any other place. We can run through all of the scenarios and see that this was THE ONLY PLACE possible for the trailer to come loose. I know that Heavenly Father and other guardian angels were watching for us and making sure the trailer did come off at this particular place and rested perfectly against the barbed wire fence. I can only imagine the huge sigh of relief coming from the other side as the trailer came to rest and they realized they had completed the task at hand. This I truly believe and feel. I know my Dad was with us during this trial. I know he was helping us and taking care of the three granddaughters he adores. Hannah even told me after our prayer in the truck that she knew Grandpa was there.

Yes, the chains from the trailer that hook on to the bumper of the truck should have stopped the trailer but they were not the right hooks on the end and they did not hold. Yes, the trailer brakes should have kicked in thus the trailer should have only slid maybe 5 or 6 feet. This does not work when the brake wire is connected to the chains that did not stay attached to the truck. We look at is this way, if the chains would have stayed attached and we lost the trailer on the freeway, we more than likely would have wrecked the truck and I don't want to think about any of us getting hurt or hurting someone else.

It was a miracle in our eyes and that's all I can say.

Saturday and Sunday of our friend get-together turned out to be way fun. We went to the pool in Lava and had fun with the kids. It would have been much funner had the wind not been blowing and requiring you to stay in the water the entire time or else freeze if you got out.

We returned home Sunday night around 7 p.m. Needless to say, I was scared out of my wits to come out of the mountains with the trailer attached. I made this comment to Dave Saturday night and again on Sunday before we left. One of the other girls told me how impressed I'd be when we came to the bottom of the mountain and stopped to get through the gate and smell how hot everyone's brakes are because they have been used so much coming down. Yea, not exactly what I needed to hear! I even commented to Dave that I might walk the 4 miles down the mountain and meet him at the bottom.

Prior to leaving camp, A LOT of time was spent hooking the trailer to our truck. I couldn't decide if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Were they being extra cautious or was something wrong? Others told me they were making sure the trailer was attached REALLY good for the ride down.

After we made it home and in the driveway, Dave decides to finally inform me as he's removing the trailer from the truck that he will be the one to hook up the trailers to our trucks from now on. Why? Well, he didn't tell me as we were coming out because he didn't want me to freak but coming down the hill on the way out we did not have trailer brakes. Our friend that hooked them up did not push the plug in all of the way. Yep! We came down that STEEP mountain relying only on the brakes of the truck! I could have passed out at that moment. Again, thank goodness for prayer and miracles!

We are here and we are safe. We have to replace the jack on the trailer and reattach the bottom piece of some molding. That's all the damage done to the trailer. Dave and I came away from this experience humbled and very grateful to a loving Heavenly Father.

It turned out to be a memorable family experience that I'm sure won't be forgotten any time soon.