The Rocks Are Mightier Than the Bug
About two years ago my parents, brothers, grandparents Jon and myself took a trek out to a little camp site just outside of Yosemite. The plan was for Jon and I to drive up early on Saturday and leave mid-afternoon on Sunday. That was the plan at least....
Saturday morning we all woke up bright and early at 5 a.m. We blearily lugged our bags out to the car. My brothers and parents in one car and Jon and myself in the other (nani and papa were going to meet up with us later). If waking up at the butt crack of dawn wasn't exciting enough, my parent's car had a flat tire-there goes our plans for leaving early. 7 o'clock rolls around, the tire is changed, and we are all finally on the road, to our neighborhood Starbucks. At 7:20, give or take a few minutes, our caravan committed to the road ahead of us. Jon was behind the wheel of my little red bug, Nadia is her name, and I was in charge of the tunes. Six hours later we were still on the road and my ipod was losing charge and to be honest Jon and I were so "over" this excursion. Luckily, Yosemite was on the horizon.
As soon as we passed from the monotony of the highway into the grand national park we became breathless. I had been to Yosemite once before but it is such a grand site that the second time feels like the first. Jon and I were glued to the windows peppering our conversation with oohs, ahhs and a couple of oh my's. Seeing Yosemite through Jon's eyes for the first time was so exciting and really special and for you, incredibly sappy I'm sure. We pulled over to eat lunch and run around like little kids. After a little lake swimming and PB&J we were back in the car and off to the campsite. We spent the rest of the day hiking and exploring and spent the night making up stories as we drifted off to sleep. Finally everything was going according to plan...
The next day we my grandparents joined us and we all went to a ghost town. We spent the whole day together, looking in every nook at the abandoned ghost town. The sun sunk lower on the horizon and Jon and I knew it was time to leave. I don't know why but I got a little teary as I said my goodbye's to my family; it was so nice to be all together with them. But Jon and I had work the next day so we had to get going whether we wanted to or not. The road seemed to stretch out for miles ahead of us and the weariness of traveling had finally tracked us down.
The weather soon shifted to match our moods, clouds covered the sun and we could hear thunder off in the distance as we got closer to Yosemite. We winded the sheer cliffs in my ever so trusty Nadia. I smiled over at Jon, these cliffs were thousands of feet from the ground and he was steadily maneuvering as though he could do it in his sleep. His cool head: one of the many reasons he makes me feel so safe. The grey clouds above us were puckered with rain and began spilling buckets, gallons, tanks of water onto us out of nowhere. Our view that once stretched out for miles was limited to barely a foot in front of us-and I am not exaggerating. My cool, calm and collected Jon did his best to remain that way and I began to freak the eff out! "oh my god babe, stop the car" and on cue the car in front of us slammed on it's breaks" To which Jon shouted: "You don't stop in the middle of the "effing" road" (Just to clarify, he was talking to the driver in front of us and no he did not say effing-he said the real deal). At this moment I began to cry hysterically and tell him to never use that language with me again. Meanwhile he is trying to explain to me that his curses were not for me but for the driver in front of us-all while driving on the side of a cliff, in a rain storm, in the middle of a national park. He is so very very patient.
I began to cry harder as a boulder about half the size of my car came flying down the mountain in front of us. At that moment all sound stopped. Jon swerved my little Nadia away from the rock of death while driving over a rock the size of a volley ball, which then hit the bottom of my car, sending me into the roof of my car...the very tall roof of my bug mind you. oh just wait it gets better. As I peeled myself off of the ceiling we both let out a huge sigh of relief, if Jon had not seen the boulder we would be residing at the bottom of the valley and the growing bump on my head would be the least of my issues because well, we would be dead. We made it out of the rainstorm without further incidents.
We pulled into a scenic rest area just as the clouds cleared up and the sun shone again. And we took the following picture:
Do we look happy to be alive or what?We practically skipped back to the car, that was until we saw the big black puddle of Nadia blood (otherwise known as oil) surrounding my car. That volley ball boulder had apparently hit the oil pan and now my car was draining every inch of oil out of the oil pan. I looked to Jon and I saw his smile drop.
I immediately flipped open my phone to call my mom-no service. I ran up to the only other tourists on the mountain top with us. Most didn't have a cell phone and the one guy that did also lacked service; side note when I flipped open his phone he had a huge picture of a kitten on his wallpaper-if I wasn't so freaked out I would have laughed.
Jon and I contemplated our options....sleep in the car....walk miles to the outside of the park and well, that was it....
Just then, as though it drove down from heaven, a tour bus pulled up to the look out point. Jon ran up and asked if we could get a ride, to, well, anywhere. They obliged and I packed my huge purse full of water, and snacks because I had no idea what we were in for.
The bus was filled with families on vacation, all smiley and such. I was tear stained and distressed and Jon was the same-minus the tears. We sat down on the plastic bucket seats and I turned to Jon and wailed "I want my mom" and sobbed hysterically into his lap. Some teenage boys turned around because I have obviously given them something better to look at. Jon put my pouty, hysterical face in his hands and said "I know you do, but you have me and I will make sure we are okay" (I know, I know I am the luckiest woman alive!) I looked into his eyes and I knew he was right. As long as we had each other we would be okay.
The bus let us off at a gas station at the edge of the park's boundaries. This is where we called a tow truck to get my darling Nadia out of the park. Jon and I sat on two rocks outside of the gas station as we waited for the tow truck. We spotted wild birds and animals as we waited and Jon turned to me and said: "this is going to be a great story to tell our kids someday"; just then it started to pour rain again, we laughed hysterically as the rain drenched us and for the second time that day I knew he was right.
We listened to the Green Day Cd twice as we made the trip to and fro.The tow truck driver dropped us in Lee Varning, which is more of a street than a town . The mechanic said he would try to patch up the oil pan, if not he would have to order a new one and that would take a week! We found all two of the hotels on the street-both had no vacancies-and we still couldn't contact my mom. My cell phone battery was about to die and but I made it through to my mom. She picked up the phone and she sounded frazzled, I had to choose my words carefully or else I would give my mom a stroke. "Mom, um, we had a little accident". The phone went silent and I heard her say "oh God the kids!!!" and then I heard nani say "oh Jesus, what?" My always calm dad picked up the phone and I told him the details so he could pick us up.
My Dad explained on the way back, that their campsite had flooded completely so they were all staying at a hotel-hence mom's frazzled state. We pulled up and walked into the hotel room and my mom grabbed me and Jon and cried profusely mumbling "ooooh nooooo". Jon tried to peep his head up and explain we were okay but she just hugged harder. Jon isn't exactly accustomed to the reactions of crazy Italian families so sometimes he is a little too rational for us all. Once my mom let go of us Nani came over and slapped us around a bit (that's how she shows love). My brothers handed us each a warm cup of noodle and asked us to retell our tail. Regardless of the mayhem that took place I can honestly say that there was nowhere else I would rather be than with the 8 of us huddled together in the cheap motel telling stories of the afternoon and of the past.
1 comments:
You guys make a cute couple!
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