Episode 1 - Mt Ashland's 4 Miracles

Good afternoon sports fans,

Rachel here, letting you know that I am about to embark on a one month journey to bloggerland. I made the mistake last year of not documenting my family vacation and it was never recorded in my 2010 blog book so this year it is going to be different. I am always overwhelmed by the task but I figured that if I do one post a day, I can finish the festivities in a little less than a month.

Recap of the whole shebang:

On July 28th, I left with two children to drive down to Etna, California, where I grew up. My other two kids were already down there staying with grandma and grandpa for a few days so I was joining them. We spent 10 days in Etna and then Rob joined us for 6 days on the coast. We were gone almost 3 weeks and did tons of relaxing.

Instead of giving you a day by day diatribe, I thought I would attack it with a play by play vibe.

Let's begin episode one with the story of 4 miracles.

The whole reason for leaving so early for our vacation was to be in attendance at my aunt Carla's memorial. She passed away in February from brain cancer at the age of 50 and since I wasn't there for her passing, I was going to make it a priority to be there for the scattering of her ashes. My grandmother (her mother) had her ashes scattered at the top of Mt Ashland in southern Oregon and so her request was to be scattered there as well.

It takes a wing, a prayer and 2 1/2 hours to make it up that mountain in a vehicle such as my minivan. I had all four kids in my car as well as my sister with my dad, mom and brother in a little civic behind us. We made it to the top but decided to continue on a few miles just to make sure it was the right spot. Just as we were going to turn around, I ran over a large tree branch in the road and that thing jammed itself right up under my car's computer system and all life went dead. That car would not respond. We were very pleased to find that the car had died in the shade of a big tree when the sun was putting out temperatures near 90 degrees. (Miracle #1)

At that point, my father (a legendary fix-it man) had already turned around so we were dead in the water, 7,000 feet above sea level with no food, water or tow truck.

My sister, Jannalee and I crawled under the car to find a lodged stick and liquid dripping from the undercarriage. Oil, gas, radiator fluid, we didn't know and I just couldn't imagine how I was going to get my car down off that mountain. I found an old McDonald's Parfait cup in the car leftover from breakfast that morning (Miracle #2 since we never eat at McDonald’s) and shimmied it under that dripping liquid to be able to get a good look at it. I knew my father would be along some day and I wanted him to have a good sample. That little cup filled up with pure, ice cold water. (Miracle #3) We had driven over a few snow drifts on our way up and the snow was melting. That was very good news. We both spent a few minutes in vain searching for a cell signal but then decided to hoof it.

As soon as we had all strapped on our tennis shoes and pulled out the stroller to start walking, up drove my father at just the right time. (Miracle #3) They were relieved to find us okay since we had not shown up within 20 minutes. My father studied and studied and crawled under and tore carpet back and examined and yanked and pulled and thought and scratched his head. Just as he was figuring out where to get a rope to haul us down, he had a ‘lightbulb’ moment. He checked the fuse box and under the “engine” title, he found a tiny burnt out fuse. He promptly, pulled the headlight fuse, dropped it down into the engine by accident, my brother pulled it back out and then he inserted it into that ‘engine’ slot and after turning the key, that beautiful purr of an engine echoed over the mountain tops. (Miracle #4)

Honestly, we were in the worst possible place on that mountain and that big stick had shorted out a wire against the frame or something and it was just a fuse, nothing more. We were extremely blessed that day and we went on with the activities.

We scattered Carla’s ashes in about the same place as my grandmother’s and then filled helium balloons with notes and let them float up to her in the sky.

A tree and flower was planted up on the hillside with ash filled snow to water it. All her children, grandchildren, sisters, nieces and nephews were there. We laughed and enjoyed each others' company and finished the day with our traditional picnic. It was a day of miracles, blessings and remembrance.