Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The Road Trip to No Where

I was thinking of things that have happened to Zeph and I over the two years before we entered a live together in marriage. One event stuck out in my mind and I decided to put it up in the journal.
A couple of winters ago a group of our friends at Oregon State University and we decided to go on a road trip to the Grand Canyon over Christmas break. Our friend Craig borrowed his parents Honda Passport. we named it Rosa and loaded it to the max with our stuff. We even had one person in the back hatch area and a car top carrier. The beginning of the trip started slow as there had been freezing rain all over Oregon the night before. We noticed on the way down that the transmission light was on but Craig's parents informed us that the transmission had been replaced but the electric indicator had not been re-attached. Long story short, while I was driving and my sister-in-law was in the passenger seat we began to smell something just south of Redding, Cali around 10:00 PM. I saw a large factory ahead and asked Ariel if she smelled it too and we thought that it must be the pollution. All of a sudden the transmission slipped. That told me that smell was coming from us and I pulled over. Black smoke instantly puffed out the sided of the hood and Ryan got out of the car. He took one look at the Rosa and said, "Guys, get out!".
Ariel and I looked at eat other and instantly hopped out while the guys in the back took their sleepy sweet time. I saw a flash of light and thought for a second that Ryan had a flashlight out. The flash fell down and turned into a burst of little flame in the grass along the road. I leaned down to see that the entire underside of the engine was dripping fire. "Guys!" I yelled. "For real, get out, the car is on fire."
They grabbed a few more things and then got out to see what was going on.
We suddenly panicked because we didn't know that cars don't explode when on fire and we ran a few hundred yards and watched as the flames enveloped the entire engine.
Our thought process from pulling over went from "Bummer, now we will have to get the car fixed" to "the road trip is definitely over" to "how do we get back?"
By now the car was on fire enough that we began to feel bad for ourselves as we were basically watching out lap tops, cameras and other items facing their melted doom. Suddenly, like out of a movie, a semi truck screeched into the gravel as a man with a fire extinguisher jumped out before it stopped and rushed to our car. Before we knew it the front flames where down to a drip again. The driver of the truck was out and, approaching us he hollered, "Well, ya want your stuff out?"
We were already to accept the loss of all our stuff so it took us a second to follow after him. We couldn't get the back latch open and the driver had the for sight to see the car was totaled and asked Craig if he could smash the window in. They smashed it in with the empty fire extinguisher and we took one load a hundred yards back. By this time the flames reached the front of the car again and that is went I remembered the propane tanks for the stove in the car top carrier. I yelled that we had to get it of and we ripped the straps and pulled it away from the flames and off the back end. The truck driver yelled, "Last load!" and we ducked under the black, lung burning smoke and pulled out what we could. Somehow before all of this we had called 911, and in the 15 minutes it took them to get there Rosa went from barely burning to totally enveloped. Rosa began to beep the alarm as her emergency lights turned on. The beeping went on like she was crying for help. Eventually the beeping faded as if she had died. We all looked at each other chuckling for a second because Rosa had gone out with style and with so much drama. Suddenly there was a loud bang and we all instinctively ducked. The tires, super heated, were exploding. The fire trucks had arrived, but the car was too hot for them to extinguish with what water they had, so let let her burn out. The final pop was from the fire extinguisher as it shot out the car after exploding from pressure.
After the flames died down the firemen sprayed the deceased Rosa down. No longer red, but a solid black, she looked like nothing but a shell. The steering wheel had melted off, all the seats were nothing but metal and my camera which had been in there had left no trace. We lost quite a few items, but not as much as we could. The fire marshal didn't know what to do with us as we were quite cheery. The way we looked at it was we were alive and had most of our stuff.
The very nice police officers of the area drove us to a hotel where we soon realized we smelled of burning everything. Luke's parents came and got us and we all made it home safely. We have yet to go to the Grand Canyon.
We never got to thank the truck drivers or even learn their names. They drove off as the fire trucks arrived. But they really are our heroes.
Safe in the hotel.

Note the missing steering wheel.

You can see the fire extinguisher shooting out.

One of the truck drivers.


Friday, February 18, 2011

Our start









I just came upon pictures from our 6 month dating anniversary. I had the idea for this journal a while ago and am finally getting it off the ground. I am going to start with our 6 month of dating where Zeph took me on a romantic hike through falls and then read me a letter he wrote to me. At the end of the day we had driven high to the crest of the Columbia Gorge. My head rested on the corner of his shoulder and I could suddenly feel his heart beat faster as he told me for the first time that he loved me.
I then told him, "I think I love you too."
We laugh now at my 'thinking' I loved him.