I found my thrill (sort of)...

Thrill Hill post thrill--this pic does it no justice. The last 15 feet are sheer. 

Got back yesterday from the Madsen Reunion, an annual occurrence that takes place during Monsoon season at a family cabin in Southern Utah. Each year has its stories, but this year they are bigger, and some may argue better, than most. The one I'm about to tell you has the potential to be part of this family's oral narrative to be told and retold 'round the campfire for years to come. Or maybe not, I don't know. It feels that big now. Every teller is the protagonist of her telling. This is natural, so I make no apologies for shaping this blog in my own image even though the events I'm about to relate more rightly belong in someone else's tale. For me, Grandpa Leroy's ATV miracle was a lesson in interconnectedness and something else I can't quite put my thumb on.

I never quite look forward to these family gatherings the way my kids and husband do. I'm a private person and sharing living space with 16 others taxes my reserve. Cabin trips are the stuff of lore for my girls, though, something vital to their well-being. Their Grandma Terri, Chris' mom, has a strong drive to bring us all together and make memories and so reluctantly I go along. Terri and I used to be close but through the years our differences have become exaggerated and certain life choices and little disasters have exacerbated the estrangement. We meet over a Scrabble board once or twice a year and call it good. In my own head I'm convinced I'm not really part of this. It has nothing to do with me. I'm along for the ride, and if I can take enough brisk walks to quell any anxiety or rising irritability from the close proximity of 16 others with whom I feel little in common then I can make it through the crafting and group hiking and evening deer runs. 

The cabin is situated in Long Valley south of Hatch, Utah and just off Highway 89. It's an ATV ant hill riddled with dirt roads. In years past we could ride just about anywhere but little by little we are hemmed in by gates and no trespassing signs. It seemed we would have to content ourselves by riding the public access gravel only. Looking for some sense of adventure, my husband and daughter found what shall henceforth be known as Thrill Hill. It's a short trail carved into the hill with a decent lead up to a steep (I'll say 90 degree but you won't believe me, so let's compromise and say 88 degree) incline. With one driver or one driver and a small child you get enough speed to make it up the hill and catch a bit of air at the top. You can also ride it down from the top for that rollercoaster effect. On Saturday Chris and I ambled out for a ride, and after repeatedly turning back from blocked passages we headed for Thrill Hill for some adrenaline infusions. The weight of two adults, however, didn't allow for much of that. We maybe caught four inches of air at the top once. 

But this is where it gets weird, where the story becomes series of coincidences strung together and some seemingly impossible images that no one had time or even thought to capture with a camera or iPhone. Chris and I drove to the bottom of Thrill Hill and stopped just long enough for Chris to pick up the golf ball he had earlier hit across the ravine that separates the hill from the cabin. A surprisingly long drive. My daughter, Kayla, spotted us and yelled across the ravine. I could hear but not see her and merely noted how well sound carried through that distance. What accounted for the accoustics? We drove back toward the cabin and looking back once I saw my father-in-law with two neices seated behind him heading at a grandfatherly pace for Thrill Hill. Chris and I even commented on it asking, "Is that Leroy?" "Yeah, I think so." At the cabin I got off the ATV and my youngest, Brynn, got on. She'd been sulking for awhile for her turn but smiled her elvish smile, hopped on and away they sped. Immediately I heard screams from the other side of the ravine (the reverse accoustics just as good) and here's where thought stopped and instinct took over. These were my nieces' cries and not from any thrill. I heard, "Help!" and something about the 4-wheeler had tipped over and I ran. Straight through the ravine. My nephew and Kayla were behind me. Kayla ran back to tell the folks in the cabin. All I did was run. No thinking. I reached the hill at the same time Chris and Brynn reached it and saw my terrified nieces running down the hill in bare feet. I couldn't see the ATV or Leroy. Chris rode around the side to the top of the hill and I heard him yell down to me. My sister-in-law had just arrived at the bottom on another ATV so I sent the kids to her and turned toward the hill and there was Leroy's ATV resting at a 90 degree angle (and this time you'll have to believe me because any other angle would have meant he'd fall backward and be crushed under the machine). He was holding on to the handlebars, his head was over the drop-off of the hill. The ATV was perched there, just on the edge. I ran to the top and Chris and I held the axle from underneath but even with all of our weight we couldn't bring the front end down. We tried getting it to rock, but this threw Leroy off center, so Chris went to the back and dug his heels in as much as he could while I hung off the front axle. LeAnn had made it to the top to help as we were getting the ATV righted. Adrenaline aplenty for everyone, we stood there amazed at the laws of physics that held the ATV it its place, the coolness of head that got Leroy to hold on to the brakes and calmly tell the girls to get off to the side and run for help. We got the story that he'd been trying to take the hill at a slow climb in first gear for the girls' sake and as he reached the top he realized the were going to fall backward unless he gunned the gas which popped the rear tires just over the lip of the hill enough so that the vehicle could rest on its back. 

The rest of the gang had driven over and reached the scene of the crime by now. The girls were inspected and re-inspected--not a scratch. No scratch on Leroy either, though he had some very crampy hands. Then the stories began to flow. Each individual had a breathless detail to add--where he was when he heard the screams, how she scrambed to get on a 4-wheeler or into the car. Chris hadn't even heard them but arrived at the hill for a joy ride and saw the two girls running and crying. I heard a few versions where I "flew" across the ravine. Leroy had been sitting there before we arrived knowing he was not agile enough to roll quickly to the side should his hands give out before anyone came. The two girls had tried to push the ATV and then there were red ants there biting their toes. But I said I was shaping this version in my own image, so here's my epiphany, if I can manage. It resides in the silence of no thought but only action. I don't know how else to describe it. Any petty feelings of estrangement or self-pity or even self at all were not present. Last blog I wrote about the sense you can get in a handstand or a perfectly balanced yoga posture--even that doesn't quite reach the spot I'm trying to scratch, but it comes closest. It was an amazingly choreographed dance--all participants moving, or in Leroy's case, not moving, as they must to bring about the best possible outcome. The best I can say is that we were a single organism. And there's the truth of it staring me in the face. We are all interconnected, like it or not. I am as much woven into this story, this family, this human family, as anyone else. 

This isn't to say that it was all peace and joy for the rest of the vacation. No, we irritated each other, stepped on toes, shared a single sometimes smelly bathroom. But my Scrabble showdown with Terri was a bit sweeter, a bit more personal, and we shared a few details of our lives from common ground. Later that evening Terri was relating the story to a friend on her cell phone and said that angels must have been surrounding that ATV. I call it the laws of physics, but why argue semantics in times such as these?