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With just three days remaining before John's trip to
Paria
Canyon with his father, John and I decided to take a day trip so that we could
spend some time together before he would leave me for five or six days.
Originally, we had talked about doing a day trip in the Crown King area,
because the weather would be perfect up there. We had even planned to do a
little day hike in the area - nothing too strenuous, something that I probably
could handle even though my Cesarean wound was still healing.
When the day arrived, though, we found that we had a hard time getting out of
bed. I had been suffering from insomnia, and on top of that, Mary had been
crying for food every three hours during the night. It was almost eight
o'clock by the time we got out of bed that morning, and it was probably going
to be another hour before we could leave the house. It was for that reason
that we decided to change our plans and go somewhere else instead.
After giving it some thought, John suggested that we take a drive over Four
Peaks. He found a series of trails in the Four Peaks Wilderness Area that
would be fun to try - they formed a four to six mile loop that wouldn't be too
difficult for me to do, given my condition. To get there, we would have to
take the road that goes over Four Peaks, which, as memory served, was not a
bad road at all.
I agreed to the day trip, so around 9:00 a.m., John and Mary and I began our
trip to the Four Peak Wilderness Area. As we left the house, John explained
that we would probably be on top of Four Peaks, ready to hike, by 11:00 a.m.
Now, the last time we had taken the Four Peaks road was in
April 1999, after a
camping trip in the Workman Creek area. I remember that the road was
windy-twisty in several places and that there were one or two very ugly
sections, where the road was very rocky and rough. For the most part, though,
the road was pretty good. Naturally, we assumed that the road had not changed
much during that time, especially after the unseasonably dry year we had had.
Of course, you know what happens when you assume.....
The turn-off for the road is just off of SR 87 north. At first, the road was
not bad at all - it was, in fact, just as we remembered it. Mary slept through
most of the first few miles, not caring at all that we were driving on a dirt
road.
But then, as we began to ascend the mountain, it got worse. Much worse. The
road had become so rutted and washed out that travel was slow and rough.
Halfway up the mountain, Mary woke up and began to fuss, as anyone would do in
that situation. That was nothing, though, compared to the sounds that the van
was making. At one point, the van was grinding so hard that we thought we had
a flat. We were on an uphill stretch with no pull-outs when we first heard it,
so we had to wait until we reached the pass to stop and look. Fortunately, all
of the tires were still round, so we continued on our way.
The van, however, continued to grind all the way up the mountain, and to make
matters worse, we hit the roughest part of the road. There were sections of
the road that were so bad that we ended up airborne - and when we landed the
seatbelt caught me painfully across the belly! Mary, too, began to cry as the
landing shook her up a little. (The straps on the car seat kept her from any
real harm, though.)
By the time we made it up to the top of Four Peaks, it was already 12:30 p.m.
- an hour later than we had anticipated. The van wasn't doing so good, and all
of us were cranky from the long, rough drive. We knew then that day hiking was
out of the question because it was already too late in the day to begin
hiking. We also knew that we needed to get the van off of the mountain and
back into civilization before were found ourselves in deep trouble.
After feeding Mary and changing her diaper, we started our descent from Four
Peaks. Instead of going back the way we came, though, we decided to go down
the other side, where we would eventually wind up on SR 188, just outside of
Jacob's Corner. There, we would find a gas station where we could stop for gas
- and for help if needed. Fortunately, that part of the road was not as rough
as the first part, so we made it down the mountain without incident.
Once we made it to SR 188, our first stop was a gas station to fill up with
enough gas to get us home. John also took a look under the van to see if he
could find the source of the grinding. Figuring that he needed oil in the rear
end of the van, we continued on down the highway.
As we drove on, the grinding only got worse. A few miles before we intersected
with SR 87, we decided to stop at the Mazatzal rest area and call for help -
there was no way we could get the van all the way home on that mountainous
highway, not when we didn't know what was wrong with it.
After pulling into the rest area, the first thing we did was call John's
parents at home...and when they didn't answer, John tried to call Bill on his
cell phone. Again, there was no answer, so we waited for a while then tried
again. Still, there was no answer. Finally, we decided to call AAA to come and
tow us to a garage for service.
I called AAA and informed the dispatcher of our situation - that we were
broken down at the Mazatzal rest area with a grinding noise in the rear of our
brown 1986 Ford Econoline 150 van (which is a very big vehicle!) and that we
also had a six-week old infant with us. The dispatcher put us on a high
priority and told us that they would have a tow truck out to us in an hour. He
also told us, though, that we would have to make other arrangements to
transport Mary home, because the tow truck driver would not be able to safely
transport the baby. That meant that we were going to have to keep trying to
find John's parents so that they could come and pick us up.
Just after I finished talking to AAA, John tried to call his parents again,
and this time he found them at home. He told them about our situation, and
Bill agreed to come and pick us up from the Mazatzal rest area. However, it
was going to be at least ninety minutes before he showed up.
For the next hour, we waited at the rest area, under the shade of the ramada.
During that time, we removed Mary's car seat from the van, so that we could
put it in Bill's car when he arrived. We also kept ourselves entertained by
playing with Mary, who was in a good mood despite being jostled around earlier
on Four Peaks road. She was wide awake and alert, too - now that she was six
weeks old, she was having more and more alert periods during the day and she
was starting to sleep longer during the night. During her alert periods, she
was learning how to play with toys. For us, that meant the beginning of the
fun stuff - she was finally at an age where she was just becoming interesting.
An hour passed before the tow truck arrived, and if it hadn't been for Mary,
the driver would have never found us. As he stepped out of the cab of the
truck, he indicated that he was looking for a 1966 teal Ford Truck.
"No, that's not right," John said to him.
"Do you have a six month old baby?" he asked.
"Six weeks."
"Close enough!" the driver exclaimed, so he began to hook the van up to the
truck.
We then explained to him that I was going to go with him into Payson, which
was where we going to be towed (that was the closest garage), and that John
was going to wait at the rest area with Mary. The driver indicated that he
could transport Mary to Payson with me; his truck was a twin cab, so he could
easily put her car seat in the backseat. That was good news for us, because we
wouldn't have to leave Mary out in the heat for much longer.
Once the van was hooked up and Mary was safely in her car seat, I left with
the tow truck driver while John waited at the rest area for his father to
arrive. As he drove away, he explained to me that he had brought the wrong
truck to pick us up and that his boss was going to be furious. He said that he
had been sent to pick up a Ford truck, not a Ford van, because the AAA
dispatcher had screwed up. Now he was going to have to slowly lug that huge
vehicle up the hill into Payson. It was very hard on the tow truck; in fact,
the truck almost overheated before we made it to the top of the hill! And, it
was such a slow drive that Bill and John caught up to us just a few minutes
after we arrived in Payson!
Since it was Sunday, the shop was closed, but the driver indicated that we
were welcome to leave the van and the keys there overnight then call for
service in the morning. John explained to him that that probably wouldn't be
necessary because he and his father were going to try to fix the problem
themselves while we were there. "Okay," he said, and he left us alone to deal
with our broken vehicle.
It didn't take long for Bill to diagnose the problem. He drove it around the
block once; then, he jacked it up and pulled off the tire to examine the drive
shaft. Just as he suspected, he found that the drive shaft had been damaged
during our drive over Four Peaks. However, it wasn't a major problem and that
we could safely drive it home. That was good news! With that, we reinstalled
the car seat and started our drive home.
Bill drove the van from Payson to Rye, just to make sure that it would make it
home. During that time, he told me that John and I really needed to buy two
things: 1) a cell phone, and 2) a new vehicle to replace the van. We had been
talking about buying an SUV in 2001, so I told him that I would make sure it
is done.
John and Bill switched vehicles in Rye, and John drove the van all the way
home. After passing over Slate Creek Divide, Bill made us pull over,
indicating that we were going too fast and that we needed to slow down. We
pulled over right behind a tow truck.....it was the same tow truck that had
rescued us from the rest area! The driver came over to us and asked it
everything was all right. John explained to him that we had figured out the
problem and that we were going to risk driving the van home. The driver wished
us luck and sent us on our way.
We finally arrived home just before dark. Although we offered to take John's
parents to dinner for rescuing us once again, Erika had already prepped steaks
for dinner, so we ate dinner at their house and relaxed, happy to be safe and
sound. |
