Page 24 - Oasis in the Sky

out of there before the roads became impassable, so we packed up my gear. The
plan was to use the four-wheel drive jeep to pull my truck as I pulled a small
trailer with my uncle’s four wheel ATV on it.
The weather was now a full-blown white out with visibility reduced to a few
yards. But my dad was determined to get out of there while the getting was
good. Otherwise, it would be days, if not weeks, before we would be able to
leave. We had not prepared for such an extended stay, so we started off in our
makeshift caravan.
We struggled on for a mile, before dad finally decided that his plan was un-
tenable. We had to leave my truck and the trailer I was pulling on the side of the
road. Because of the weather and dad’s health (he had undergone a quadruple
bypass two years earlier), the plan was to get him into a hotel in town. The high-
way was eighteen miles away over a rough, snow-covered dirt road. The town
of Seligman was another twenty-plus miles from there. Surely, it would be a
couple of hours in inclement, below-freezing weather. After getting dad to town
and safety, I would return for my dogs who were safely ensconced in the cab of
my truck.
We started off for the highway and Seligman in our open-air, four-wheel-
drive jeep, with one set of snow chains to battle the blizzard. Dad was driving,
and I noted that his lips were blue. I was toasty, layered well, with a ski mask
over my face, ski goggles, and a wool knit cap on my head. Unfortunately, dad
was not so well dressed, and the weather was taking a toll on him.
Twice on the way to the highway, our jeep became stuck in the snow. The
snow was so deep that the jeep bottomed out, leaving the wheels with nothing
to grip, Twice I dug the jeep out, but then I took control of the situation. If I had
to be the one to dig it out, then I was going to be the one who got it stuck. Be-
sides my dad’s condition had deteriorated. I put him in the passenger seat,
wrapped him in a tarp to break the wind and conserve his body heat, and then I
drove us out of there, going cross-country at times to save time and to avoid
drifts of snow on the road.
Finally, we reached the highway; a one hour trip had taken three hours. The
twenty-plus miles to Seligman took another hour. I got dad into a hotel and
found a laundromat to dry my clothes, which had been soaked from the exer-
tion of digging the jeep out of the snow twice. Once my clothes were dry, I
checked on dad again, bought another set of snow chains for the jeep, and headed
back for my dogs.
It was dusk as I turned off the highway onto the ranch road back to the
cabin. I put the new pair of snow chains on the front wheels (the back wheels
already had chains) and started the journey back. Fortunately, there was a full
moon, and the snow had let up, because I lost the lights. My new dilema was an
ice-covered windshield, no lights, driving by moonlight with my head hanging

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Oasis in the Sky
Oasis in the Sky