A Force To Be Reckoned With

Today is my birthday and I’m turning 30, so I’m going to write about what I want to write about. Then again, I always write about what I want to write about. I really just wanted you all to know it was my birthday. Despite the fact that I’m finishing off my third decade, I’ve recently been watching a Nickelodeon series on Netflix called “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” It’s a cartoon and the characters are mostly young, but it’s charming and full of life lessons for children and adults alike.
The reason why I’m bringing up “Avatar” is because the main character, Aang, can manipulate the wind and air to cause sometimes devastating effects, much like the storm we experienced late Sunday night. Because of a strong wind, a 500-pound branch snapped off a tree in my backyard and crashed to the ground. Unfortunately the branch didn’t crush my house (most homeowners should be able to relate with this sentiment), but it did come down on top of a power line. Amazingly, the branch got wedged between my shed and the tree it came off of, taking the slack out of the power cables, not breaking them. No real damage was done other than to the tree. Wind can be brutal at times.
Aang is able to create strong winds to knock his opponents back and block their elemental attacks. Imagine being able to create a windstorm so strong that it turns into a hurricane (which Aang can do), destroying everything within its path. If you’ve seen any recent pictures of Hurricane Irene, you know that hurricanes can turn buildings into big piles of toothpicks. A huge, swirling mass of air has enough strength to pick up boats and cars and houses and throw them miles away, and it still has the power to continue raging across the landscape.
One of my friends, who is also familiar with the “Avatar” series, once asked me what kind of a “bender” I would be. There are four types: water, fire, earth, and air. I really thought about it and eventually responded that I would be an airbender. One, I would love to fly without using an airplane. Two, I like to think that I am relaxed and friendly and air is generally very soothing and calm; there is nothing like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. And three, the wind is invisible, which makes it easy to forget that it can be a force to be reckoned with; air has the element of surprise.
Don’t let the wind surprise you on your outdoor adventures. There have been too many sad news stories revolving around a sudden wind storm: a harmless campfire turns into a raging forest fire; a group of boaters is missing after their boat capsizes due to a strong wind; a rogue current of air knocks a plane out of the sky; a stage collapses during high winds and crushes a crowd of people; a kite flies too high and is ripped out of a screaming six-year-old’s hands. Okay, that last one wasn’t in the news, but it should have been. The point is, don’t count the wind out when you’re planning for an activity. Wind is like a ninja: invisible, deadly, and seems to be in multiple places at once, which it actually is. Don’t underestimate the power of the air and remember that I like mint chocolate cake!

Saving Summer

Don’t let school get in the way of enjoying the last days of summer. Summer technically doesn’t end until the 23rd of September this year. Now I’m not condoning parents taking their kids on last-minute trips to Disneyland instead of sending their children off to school, or teenagers playing hooky to go fishing before the rivers freeze. What I want to encourage is using the last few weekends this summer to enjoy the outdoors. Weekends. You know, the parts of the week that most people aren’t working and children aren’t in school. The parts you sometimes don’t know what to do with because you’ve got so much to do and only two days to do it in.
Speaking of time management, summer seemed to get a late start this year with all the snow and rain that wouldn’t quit. Actually summer almost started right when it was supposed to, that is on the 21st of June, but most kids had already been out of school for a few weeks at that point. It feels like we were shorted one whole month because the weather was prohibitive of outside activities, like camping or hiking. Everything was either buried under 30 feet of snow, caked with mud, or being carried down a raging river.
I love to camp and hike, but I hate campgrounds and trails full of other humans. I’m okay with lots of deer and rabbits. Not bears and cougars, though. Anyway, nature appeals to me because of the solitude and peacefulness that it affords. The distant mountains seem to become a small town with all of the noise and activity going on in the summer. And the amount of precipitation we received this year in the late spring season forced everybody closer together into easily accessible camping areas and hiking trails and kept more remote places like the Mirror Lake area closed until mid-summer. There was no chance of real isolation without the risk of becoming stuck in the mud or snow or flooding river. The months of July and August have thankfully offered a bit of a reprieve from the negative elements, and things now are a bit less soggy and more conducive to a good night’s sleep in the forest or a meandering wander through the canyons.
Now is the time to go camping and hiking. It’s still relatively warm in the mountains, the snow isn’t prohibitive, the rivers have died down, and there will be fewer and fewer people crawling around the mountains as the weeks go by (except for the upcoming Labor Day weekend). Think about it: you really only get maybe 60 to 70 chances in your lifetime to truly enjoy the outdoors during the dying days of summer. That may seem like a lot, but talk to a 90-year-old and see if he or she doesn’t wish for a few more camping and hiking trips. Of course, make sure you’re talking to someone who actually enjoys the outdoors; otherwise you’ll probably just elicit a response containing the words “Fool darn” and a phrase beginning with “Back in my day…”
Help save summer and get in a couple more outdoor adventures before the sun heads south. Your kids will love you for it. And if you don’t have kids, I’m sure your neighbors will be just as thankful for the short break.

Salvation

*Continuation from previous week*
A highway trooper had pushed Martin more than a mile down the freeway, I was standing with a full 5-gallon gas can in my hand, and it was hot. Oh, and my phone was in my backpack, which was in Martin’s Suburban. I took my time walking back to the gas station, knowing that it could be awhile before Martin would come to pick me up.
All happy thoughts of our recent trip to Southern Utah had fled as I trudged back and found a shady spot near the intersection so I could watch for Martin’s return. I had my doubts, though, that I would see Martin anytime soon. You see, I had his wallet and driver’s license. My wallet was with my phone, and I hadn’t had time to rummage through everything because we were in the middle of a freeway and death was only one inattentive driver away. I was pretty sure the trooper would want to see Martin’s license, and upon discovering that Martin was lacking his license, the trooper would in all probability cart Martin off to jail. It never occurred to me that Martin’s 11-year-old son also being in the vehicle might throw a wrench into that whole scenario. Maybe the trooper would take both of them to jail. Then, I thought, maybe Martin’ll tip them off, and they’ll come back and haul me off to jail. But I hadn’t even done anything! I was just in the car with the guy who ran out of gas on the busy freeway. A panicked mind is rarely rational.
Now most people would have said a quick prayer and left the situation in God’s hands at this point. But I had too much faith in Martin. I gave him one hour. After one hour, I would call the police to see if they knew of his whereabouts, and then maybe say a quick prayer that I would make it home.
Time went by extremely slowly. Everybody knows that a watched kettle refuses to boil, and the kettle I was trying to watch wasn’t even anywhere in sight. The truly ironic part of the whole experience is that I had no way to tell time, unless I wanted to reenter the gas station, but the cashier had looked at me funny when the PIN to Martin’s card had failed four times and then I signed his name like I had just learned how to write cursive. Anyhow, every ten minutes I kept telling myself that only five minutes had passed, and so Martin’s hour really could have gone on for multiple hours and I probably wouldn’t have made a move until the sun started to set.
When I was little, I had gotten lost at the county fair, and my parents had taken the time beforehand to instruct us to return to our van if we became lost. Thank goodness for that, because within five minutes of being lost I was found. Scouting had taught me to stay where I was in the event of becoming disoriented. While standing in the shade of a traffic light pole, I knew that the only chance of seeing Martin again was staying right where I was. Right where he knew I was stranded.
After what seemed like forever, a disembodied voice rang out through the noise of the endless traffic: “Gabe!” I looked all around, but nothing. When somebody yells my name, it can sound a lot like, “Hey!” or, “Jake!” After seeking for the source of the voice for a few more seconds, I decided that my delusional brain would only begin to make matters worse for my over-hopeful heart, and I turned to walk into the gas station and place a call to the local police.
And there, in front of me, in all its glory, was a white Suburban, mud-spattered and beaten. And yet, it was the most beautiful sight I have ever seen in my life. Well, at least on that day. Martin had come through and saved the day. It was the perfect ending to the most epic adventure I’ve had in a while.

Left Behind

*Continuation from previous week*
Martin, his kid, and I were coming home from a Southern Utah adventure. Our vehicle was stranded on the freeway just outside Spanish Fork. I was on a mission to procure a gas can and gas. The advanced technology at the gas station had finally decided it had taken a long enough break, it came back online, and I was able to pump five gallons of fuel into my newly acquired container. I breathed a sigh of relief as I began making my way back to the forlorn Suburban blocking a lane of traffic on I-15. This was the second time on this trip that the Suburban had made me believe that I wasn’t going to make it home.
The first morning we woke up in one of the most beautiful canyons I had ever experienced. It wasn’t so much the landscape that made it amazing; it was the serenity. And the way the canyon made me think about life and how complicated things become in the city, but that nature can always put things back into perspective. That morning Martin decided it would be fun to teach his 11-year-old boy the ins and outs of off-roading, so he put him in the driver’s seat. Within two minutes we were six inches deep in a wash that had recently seen a lot of rain. I immediately thought the worst and decided that we might as well choose now which one of us would be eaten first. In all reality we were only a few miles from the nearest highway, but the human mind has a way of instantly kicking into panic mode at the first sign of trouble. After taking the wheel, Martin had us out of the wash in mere seconds and I was able to breathe easy again.
Walking back to the Suburban, I wasn’t as panicked as when I initially jumped out of the window and ran toward the gas station. As I thought about my waning panic, I realized the whole trip had been full of moments of short-lived terror and long sighs of relief. Like when Martin’s foot slipped in some mud on the edge of Lake Powell’s shore, and I couldn’t do anything but observe from the top of the rock where I was perched, 200 feet away. Martin’s six-foot-six-inch, 350-pound frame went down like a sack of potatoes, and I knew there was no way I could drag his drowning body back without drowning myself. To Martin’s credit, he got out a good yell before becoming enveloped by the thick, chocolaty water. It sounded like a war cry. Like, even though he knew the lake was going to kill him, he would show his defiance until the bitter end.
Five seconds of shocked silence went by before I heard laughter. From Martin’s kid. I was confused. Until I saw Martin’s face emerge, sputtering. Again he let out a great shout, and then a chuckle of relief that he wasn’t dead. All I could do was lie down and let my tense muscles relax. Relief is one of the best feelings in the world. As if a ton of weight has been lifted off your shoulders.
Cresting the off-ramp to the freeway, the ton of weight I had just shrugged off moments before came right back down on me, full force. The Suburban was not where I had left it ten or fifteen minutes before. There was a line of traffic, though, and I followed it northward about a quarter of a mile beyond the on-ramp. A set of flashing blue, red and white lights was pushing a great, white behemoth down the freeway to the next exit, which was probably a mile away. Panic mode set in and I began running toward my ride home. After 30 seconds or so, reality hit and I knew there was no way I would catch them. I set the full gas can down and reached into my pocket for my phone. The weight on my shoulders increased dramatically as I remembered that my phone was in my backpack. In the Suburban. Which had just disappeared from my sight.
I had been left behind. TO BE CONTINUED…

Stranded

As we sat there, stock-still on the freeway near Provo, with all of the people passing by, I realized that we were completely alone. Yes, people were honking and hurling endearing epithets at us and our vehicle, which was blocking one whole lane of high-speed traffic, but we may as well have been alone and stuck in a Southern Utah canyon, from whence we were returning. No one was trying to help, and I don’t blame them. We were in a construction corridor and there were barricades on either side of the road. I had to crawl out of the passenger side window in order to run to the nearest gas station for help. Leaving my editor, Martin, behind with his 11-year-old kid, I struggled to find the strength to hurry. My recent stomach sickness had left me weak and I had only eaten a few crackers that morning. Plus it was hot. Despite the hundreds of cars coming and going on the roads, I felt like a man out in the middle of Monument Valley on his belly, reaching out with one hand hoarsely whispering, “Agua!” Except it wasn’t water I needed, it was gasoline.
It’s funny that we ran out of gas when we did. We shouldn’t have, but the last gas station we had visited was having “technical difficulties” and none of its pumps were online. So, we decided to hit the next exit. That never happened. The irony of the matter is that we had come from an area of Utah that is relatively devoid of civilization and life. We hadn’t had to worry about running out of fuel, because every chance we had to fill up, we had taken. None of the pumps in Hanksville or Goulding had been offline, and they were several miles from any sort of metropolitan area. But somehow, perhaps because the importance of providing the necessary items for survival in such far-flung places is very high, every little town and convenience store along our Southern Utah adventure route had gas. I had to laugh to myself as I walked into the air conditioned gas station off the South Provo stretch of freeway: they too were offline and nobody in the gas bays could pump gas.
Searching for the perfect gas can (I had two to choose from, both of which were 5 gallons) and waiting for the pumps to come back online (which the clerk had assured dozens of people it would do shortly), I wondered how we survive in a world of technology that seems to only work when it wants to. And when it breaks down, it requires a team of highly specialized technicians to fix. I was actually more comfortable with the notion of becoming stuck in some river bottom near Capitol Reef with a vehicle that weighs a couple of tons than feeling like I was at the mercy of a computer program. With a little ingenuity and hard work I could at least find a way to pull the vehicle out of the mud. I know nothing about a gas station’s computerized pumping system, not to mention the employees at the station probably wouldn’t let me anywhere near it anyway.
On the first night of our adventure, I found simple pleasure in watching the full moon rise above the silent hills surrounding our campsite. Technology had almost no place there. I say almost because a vehicle had transported us there. And because some Led Zeppelin was spilling out of my iPad. But other than that, we were encircled in the arms of a land that reveals its secrets to those who are willing to surrender their complex thoughts and complicated theories. Life made so much more sense there in the middle of nowhere than where I currently found myself: sick, tired, worried about Martin and his son on the freeway, and still trying to decide between two 5-gallon gas cans. TO BE CONTINUED…