Many Blessings

We've been home for almost a week. We spent almost three weeks in Provo. As always it was good to see family and friends. My parents and brother David flew in from NY and Rachel and Dave drove from Calgary.

We were impressed as we drove up through Flagstaff, Kanab, and Duck Creek with the beauty and variety of the landscape as well as the sheer immensity of it. The awareness of how small we are was most acute when driving from Flagstaff to Page. We drove through low desert, mountainous desert, pine forests, more desert (moonscape desert) and then the small valleys that Highway 89 follows as it heads north from Kanab. The most beautiful section was the drive over the mountains near Cedar Breaks. There was about 2' of snow on the ground and it was amazing.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time with family. This included gatherings where portions of four generations of my family were there and others where an ever growing three (the third is the only expanding group) generations of Mindy's family were represented.

The boys got to go sledding/tubing. When I went with Cole it was all ice and I decided I didn't have enough padding. After nearly hitting a park bench and stand of scrub oak we went home. If I'm going to pull a Bono I'm not going to do it while holding Cole.

I was really bored at times so I volunteered to run a log splitter for a day - great hamstring workout I might add (but probably just because I'm not accustomed to manual labor), and a chainsaw in the snow for another day.

Dad gave each of us a game for Christmas called "Dutch Blitz". www.dutchblitz.com. We played a lot of this game and stayed up way too late. Cole spent a lot of time wrestling with Dave and was a big fan.

Midway through the second week Cole started to cry at night "Go home, go my house, see my cats".

We got home and had a monstrous pile of mail. Among the mail was a thank you card with no return address label. Inside was a note that stated "Hello- You witnessed an April 18 accident on I-10. My mom and I were the ones hit in the Honda CR-V. I want to thank you for your kindness in offering your witness account of what happened and I wanted to let you know me and my mom expect to make a full recovery. Thank you! Gina & Phyllis."

This was completely unexpected and we were impressed that this lady went to the trouble of finding out our address. It is still somewhat of a mystery how she tracked us down since we were living in Tucson at the time. I think I didn't write about it at the time since we didn't know if we'd end up in court to recount it. We had driven up to Phoenix to meet my Uncle and his family at the Desert Botanic Garden. It was a typical sunny day and was warm (probably almost 90). We had gotten past the last large exit in Phoenix and I was looking in the rearview mirror or at the radio or something when Mindy said "hey look at that guy". I looked up to see a vehicle traveling the opposite direction swerve onto the left rumble strip, overcorrect and shoot back across the two lanes, overcorrect again, come across the two lanes, through the median and hit the CRV that was about 200-300 feet behind us. At that point we pulled over and I went back to the scene. There were a lot of people already there and the first thing I noticed was the smell of motor oil. There was also an engine block on the road that looked ready for initial installation. It was the engine block of the CRV. The two women were trapped - the impact had taken off the entire front of their car forward of the doors and had wedged the doors shut. The other car, another mid-size SUV was on its side 50' off the side of the road. There were a couple of customs agents on scene, and there was at least one nurse. The driver was getting pulled out by the time I got there. Then the people started checking on the passenger who was down against the ground trapped in the car. I was assigned to keep the driver seated so I just stood behind him and tried to keep him in my shadow. Highway patrol got there first, and they just kept coming. There were probably 8-9 officers on scene. It seemed to take the fire department a long time to get there. We now live parallel with the exit this happened near and the fire station is at least 10 miles from the interstate. When the HP and fire department finally got there we gave them whatever information we thought they needed to get working. The firemen quickly got out their car dismantling gear and started to cut up the car. I ended up at the back of a cop car filling out my report. A helicopter started to circle and after a few times around it landed on the off-ramp. It quickly took off. A few minutes later another one did the same. Sometime while filling out my report they pulled the passenger out of the car and started CPR. As I was handing the officer my report they covered her with a sheet and the second helicopter took off empty. I went back to the car and gave Mindy a big hug. We'd been there almost an hour and the two women who sent us the note were still trapped in their car.

We got a call from highway patrol about a week later and the investigator spoke with each of us. I beleive they were investigating the driver for DUI.

We are grateful to be alive. It is amazing what a difference a few seconds make. Had we been hit broadside, Cole and I would have been hit. It was also a vivid reminder of how fragile and passing life is. We are also grateful that Gina and Phyllis are okay and we were impressed by their simple note.