5 years ago today

Rychen here again...

Occasionally people ask random questions, probably for the sake of conversation. For instance: where were you and what were you doing 5 years ago. More than likely I could answer this question with a location and maybe a few other details. But October 17th is different.

On October 16th, 2004, friends of ours got married in Las Vegas. We feel at least a little bit responsible for this happy union, as the bride is one of A's best friends growing up and the groom, one of my mission buddies. In our short time living in Las Vegas, we made sure to have a get together at A's friend's house and invited my buddy.

We were back in Provo when the wedding took place, so of course we made the drive down. The problems started when we decided to begin our return home at 3am the next morning.

Long story short: we were both too tired to drive 5+ hours safely. We pulled off in St. George and tried to get a quick nap in the parking lot of a hotel, and then continued on. I don't remember all the details, but I think my dad was in town on a layover on his way to Denver or something, so we were hustling to get back in time for him to see us.

Sometime after leaving St. George, I fell asleep in the passenger seat. I was awakened by two sounds: 1) The grating on the side of the road and 2) Annalise screaming. She had apparently dozed also and had started to veer left out of the lefthand lane. The grating had apparently awaken her also, and caused an overcorrection in steering, followed by an overcorrection of the overcorrection. This sent our car spinning multiple times as it slid off the highway, through a barbed-wire fence and into the Utah desert.

I struggled with the experience for a little while. I would keep reliving it in my dreams, seeing the car spin from different angles, hearing the sounds, etc. And 5 years later and I still bristle at the sound of the grating on the side of the highway. But thinking of this experience, as still-newlyweds ourselves (5 months or so), I realize I'm also grateful for a lot of things. For instance:

- The nearest car to us when we went spinning was a half-mile or more away (we know this b/c he pulled over to help us and commented how surprised he was how empty the freeway was that morning)

- From St. George to about 5 miles south of Provo (250 miles or so) there's a 2-mile stretch where the freeway transitions smoothly into the desert. The rest of the trip there's a huge ditch separating the two. We went off the road in the middle of this 2-mile stretch.

- Aside from a dented front fender and some scratches, the car was completely intact. This was a good thing, because he had exactly $0 to put towards car repairs (in fact, to this day we don't know how we paid the $600 to fix what we did).

- Generally, we were fine. I had a concussion, and was a little bit out of it for a few days, but generally fine. We didn't know it at the time, but A was about 4 weeks pregnant with Bub and she was fine also.

We still own the car. It's still got the scars (as do I to some degree). We'll probably drive it into the ground (it's paid off and it's a Honda-many years left in it). But when I see the dents and scratches I often think of how much we've been blessed and watched over. It just makes me grateful.