After we left Mt. Graham, we debated on what to do: find another camping spot or get a hotel. Hmmm...hindsight is always 20/20. As we were driving and it got darker and darker, we managed to find a road and we took it. Since it was dark, we didn't see that the road goes right through a wash...with lots of sand. Now in the past we would have just put it in 4 wheel drive with our Yukon XL, but our party bus doesn't have that feature.
So all the kids were asleep in the van. They were sleeping so peacefully that we didn't want to wake them up, so Ben and I worked and worked to get ourselves unstuck. We tried everything we could think of. We dug, put twigs and cardboard under the tire to get traction, forward, reverse, but we only got deeper and deeper. Finally we retired to inside of the van. Kids were everywhere! On seats, the floor, on top of each other. I found a spot to sleep by Daisy's carseat, half on the seat and half off. Ben slept in the drivers seat for a while and then moved to that spot that you step on after you open the sliding door. Yeah, I don't know how he slept there.
So we got some sleep. Not a very good sleep, but some. And we tried again in the morning. We weren't very far from the highway, inbetween Safford and Wilcox. One nice man stopped by and tried to pull us out. It didn't work. He had a small blazer and we have a one ton. So he left and came back again with more "equipment" and tried again. That didn't work either, but it was really, really nice of him to stop and try. In the meantime, we were able to get a hold of my brother, James, who lives in Safford. (Funny thing is, he just pulled my sister out of the sand the week before. Thank goodness for little brothers!)
I wish I could have taken some pictures. James was driving over bushes and small tress like they were nothing! He hooked us up and pulled the van out like it was nothing! He was a life saver!
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| Here is the tire after we tried all night to get it unstuck. |
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| The Van View. |
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| It got deeper and deeper the more we tried! |
We did a few things to keep us all entertained for the 12 hours we were stuck. Obviously the first part of the 12 hours, we slept, or tried to. When morning came around, Caleb and Carson practiced their photography skill and took a few pictures! They took some good ones too! Some boys made towns out of dirt and rocks and sticks. And of course we ate lots of snacks!
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| Daisy |
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| Cactus Flower |
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| We watched the highway and all the cars. |
So after we left our "camping spot", we headed to Tombstone. On our way there, we stopped in St. David and visited the cemetery there. We found lots of family graves there. The boys had fun looking for the headstones. It was like a treasure hunt.
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| Our Great-great Grandpa Calvin Reed. |
There were lots of pictures I took. After we visited the town of Tombstone, we went to the town cemetery. I'm not talking about the Boothill Graveyard, but the actual town cemetery. Here we found Tom Brandt's Gravestone. He owned the town bank and was the first one shot and killed in a bank robbery in Tombstone. He is my Grandpa Reed's (Pa) uncle.
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| Tom Brandt's Gravestone |
Then in the same cemetery, Lillian Reed is buried. I believe that she is Pa's cousin who died in an automoblie accident (when cars were first coming out). I was honored to participate in sealing her to her parents in the Temple.
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| Lillian Mrytle Reed 1909-1926 |
We had a great time on our Roadtrip and hope to do it again. Next time, we will avoid the sand and get a hotel. :) It's the trips that don't go as planned that you will always remember.
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