We started our final day by taking pictures at an overlook
by the Glen Canyon Dam. Nate and I took
a trip to Arizona before we got married and took a picture in the same spot. Things have sure changed for us in the last
14 years.
We took a quality tour of the dam. There was only one other couple in our group. It was nice to have our own (almost) private tour. We had the shortest tour guide of all time. The kids thought it was amazing that he was a grown up but was only as tall as Ben. They were also impressed with the awesome wolf howl he did in the tunnel leading back to the visitor center. We learned lots about how they constructed the dam and about hydroelectric power. Pretty fascinating stuff. Plus, we got to see the grass that grows at the base of the dam and cool little bats that live in the gaps between the cement railing at the top of the dam.
Perhaps the most memorable part of the whole trip was
running out of gas on the way home. The
computer in our van said that we had 89 miles to go until we were empty when we
were in Page. Our GPS said it was only
63 miles to Kanab, so we figured we would be fine to wait until we got to Kanab
to fill up. Really it was 74 miles to
Kanab . . . plus we made a couple of little detours that added about 10 more
miles. We should have figured in a
bigger margin of error. The distance to
empty number started dropping faster than normal when we were about halfway to
Kanab. We turned off the AC and started
praying. Fortunately, we went an extra
22 miles after it said we were down to zero.
Being 1½ miles out of town was infinitely better than being stuck in the
middle of nowhere. We stopped right in
front of a road maintenance building for the Department of Transportation. It was Sunday, so no one was working. Nate was contemplating jumping the fence to
make sure no one was in the building (never mind the no trespassing sign), when
an employee pulled up with his wife and son.
He lived about 20 minutes away and was just stopping by to pick up some
papers that he needed for work the next day.
We had only been there for about three minutes. It was positively providential. He grabbed a gas can from the building, drove
Nate to town, and was back in about 10 minutes.
The whole ordeal took less than 20 minutes before we were on the road
again. That is lots better than it could
have been! Next time we'll err on the
side of caution. The kids thought it was
awesome. I'm sure they wouldn't have if
it had taken 2 hours, but the way it turned out, it was one of the
highlights of the trip for them. While
Nate was off getting the gas, we had a nice discussion about how sometimes God
answers our prayers in unexpected ways. It
was a good lesson for all of us.
Ironically, the only other time Nate on I have ever run out
of gas was on another trip to Arizona (the one we took in 1998). That was more on purpose. Nate already had gas in the tank in his car
and he wanted to play Cosmo Kramer and see how far below the line the needle
would get before it ran out. We found
out. :)
Other than the gas incident, our drive home was pretty
uneventful. We figured we had seen
enough of I-15, so we took Highway 89 instead.
It was fun to see all of the small towns along the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment