BAD DIRECTIONS

This is the short and condensed version of our Christmas Vacation Nightmare. I will at least try to keep it short!

It starts like this.... We are traveling to Hamilton Montana for Christmas with the Wischmeier family, but we decide to go see the Wischmeier Family farm in Troy Idaho on our way to Montana. We arrive in Troy Idaho at night, and leave the next morning for Hamilton. Ben doesn't quite remember how to get to the freeway, so we stop in a little town called Kenderick to ask for directions. The checker lady at the grocery store quickly gave us directions, and off we went. We take her exact directions and before long both Ben and I start to get a little bit worried. I don't know what worried us the most... was it the sign that read "Pavement ending" or was it the fact that we were driving on a mountain in a foot of snow? Not to mention that this mountain that we were on had no guardrails. So basically, we are LOST!! Lost in the Northern Idaho Mountain Wilderness! Help was miles away... and our faith in those directions was completely gone. So we have no cell phone service and no idea where we are. Mama starts to panic, her anxiety starts to raise, as there is nothing in sight for miles. We finally make it over this mountain and find some homes. We think that we have found some sort of life, but nope no one home!!! Are you kidding me... who lives out here anyways? And where did they go? I decide to try to walk around outside for a minute to see if I can get cell phone service. And thank goodness I had one bar in this one 3 foot section of snow. But don't you move because opps there's goes the service. Anyway, we get a hold of Ben's dad and he has somewhat of a clue as to where we are. Our faith is growing again. But wait... Ben's dad tells us that we should just turn around and head back over that mountain that we just came down. This I was not to happy about, but the road that we would have taken to get out the other way, looked much more desolate. Yeah, no thanks we thought, so back over the mountain we go. We start our trek back over and we get about three or four miles into it and get completely stuck. See.... we were trying to make it up a mountainous hill, in a mini-van and that's where we were going all wrong. The tires were spinning out of control and not before long the van starts to slide down the hill. Remember there are no rails... nothing to stop us from going over the cliff. Mama is panicking, yelling, freaking out because she is in the back and in her mind all she can see is the van plumitting over the edge and her whole family dying, but no one would ever find them, because no one knows where the heck they are!! Finally Ben turns the steering wheel just right, so the van turns toward the mountain. The van then hits the side of the mountain and we are quickly stuck in the ditch. Once we were stuck in the ditch, the van decides to continue to roll back for another 25 feet, just to freak us out a little bit more. At last the van comes to a complete stop. All we can think is "Did this really just happen? Are we really here? How did this happen?" Really all Mama was thinking was that we are all going to die. So now what?? Ben and I just look at each other and don't really say a word. See Mama's eyes were filled with tears and she was worried that if she did speak only cuss words would come out. But we got over the initial horribleness, and figured that we would get everyone dressed in their snow gear and walk back to those homes we had seen before. Now the awful thing is, Abby was super tired and she refused to walk. Ben carried her, while I carried Mac in the snuggly. ( A big shout out to the makers of the Snuggly) We walked and walked and walked, we had to walk up hills that looked easy in a car, but were really hard when walking with children attached to you. It's about 25 degrees and getting colder and darker by the minute. It was horrible. After each little turn we made, and still not seeing any homes I started to cry a little bit. But then I would look back and I would see Ben trudging through the snow with Abby on this shoulders, and my faith was renewed. He was amazing... He is my hero. I don't know how he did it, but he just did. He literally never uddered one negative comment, not once did he complain. So we're walking and we come across a truck. This truck was parked up on a little hill and we just figured that they were out hunting or something like that. We begin yelling for "Help" as loud as we could, but no response. The eagle scout Ben decides to make a Help sign out of twigs and point the sign in the direction that we were going. It was too cold to wait at the truck for the owner to arrive, so we pushed on towards the homes. We are both so tired, that we really start to slow down. Abby was so tired that she fell asleep on Ben's shoulders, I couldn't believe it. Ben was in so much pain, so I decided that I should start running, I figured that if Ben could be walking in snow with a sleeping 2 year old on his shoulders, then I could be running. This was quite the task, poor little Mac's face was rubbing againist the zipper of my jacket (this I didn't realize until that night, when I saw that his chin was rubbed raw).I finally made it to one of the first homes, but it was empty. My cell phone was turned off, because it was dying. I had this crazy feeling to turn it on and see if I had service and I did! Awesome! I called Ben's dad and this time I was much more panicked. "Bob we are lost, really lost and I am freaking out" Those were my exact words. He told me that I needed to call one of his friends from the farm,because he knew that they could help us. But my phone was dying and I barely had service, so he told us he would try to get a hold those men and to just give him a call back when we have been found. So we are back on the walk/run for help. Pretty soon, I see a car driving on a road right ahead of me. I am frantically flapping my arms around yelling "Help us, Help us please!!!" But they didn't hear or see me. REALLY???? I am getting so upset by this point. All I could say was "Really???" Like is this really happening to us??? So finally I have made it to the house that we had originally been at, when we first called Ben's dad. No one is home still, but just over the hill I see two trucks coming up the road. YES!! We have been saved! Or so I thought. I flag down the first truck, and inside is a 70 year old hillbilly, and I am being nice with that description. I tell him all of what had happened to us, and his response is, "Oh.. well maybe my daughter in the next truck can help you out."I asked him if he could take me to get Ben and Abby and he just sits there with his mouth hanging open!! I am still not sure if he even spoke english. So I say "Screw it" and slammed his door shut and headed to the other truck. At this point I am praying that this daughter has little bit better social skills. I get to the truck and she and her husband take one look at me and throw open their pickup doors and invite me in. I was saved!! Now we just needed to go and get Ben and Abby. After all the dumb confusion with the hillbilly, Ben and Abby had made it almost to where I was. So we get to them, and we look up the road and see that truck that we put the help sign on was coming towards us. He gets out of his truck and asks if everyone is alright, and I think to myself, Hooray a normal person!!! Ben and I are telling everyone exactly what had happened, and all the hillbilly people could do was stare in disbelief. Not once did they offer to take us to the nearest town, or to help get our van out of the ditch. But the normal guy in the other truck said that he could take us to town and get us some help. I took one look at him and said "Please just take us where ever you are going!!" So he did. Thank goodness for him. At this point all I wanted was to be out of the snow. He had a truck with studded tires, so it was much easier for him to navigate through the wild snowy outback. We went back to the van and got some critical items, like diapers, wipes, and childrens clothing and then off we went to the nearest town. We left the van in the ditch and just hoped that it wouldn't slide off the hill. When we were in the truck with this complete stranger, all I could was make small talk and ask him all about himself and his life, but while I was doing this Abby was farting just about every 2 minutes, which was making me laugh and just think about what a funny/crazy situation we were in. So we make our way back to that town Kenderick where we got the bad directions, and I have to go to the bathroom, so we stop in at that same store to go. This is great because the whole time that I was walking in the snow all I could think about was how much I wanted to hurt that lady that gave us such awful directions. I played it out in my mind exactly how I would attack her, but then I came back to my senses and remembered I was Mormon and I have to set a good example!!!! I went into the store, walked right up to her and gave her some of my choice words, just to let her know how wrong she was to give us those directions. She felt really bad, and that made me feel much better.Still I don't like her very much but oh well, we lived I am over it. (Kinda). Mean while when I am yelling at her, this huge man says "Are you a Wischmeier?" I look at him and wonder who the heck is this.... but then I think at last someone knows me and finally I don't look like the village idiot anymore!!! He turns out to be Ben's dad's friend from the farm. He and his brother were out looking for us. Isn't that sweet! These two were the most gracious and wonderful men I have ever met! At last... my hope is back and I realize we are all going to be alright. So we finally get to Lewiston Idaho, and stay at the first hotel we can see. The lovely Red Lion! I know.. nice huh?? We figured we deserved something nice after all that. We get into the hotel and fall to our knees and thank our Heavenly Father for our safety and for sending such good people to helped us. Later on that night the sheriff come to our room to hear the whole story and to find out exactly where we were. He didn't even know where we were... crazy. He was kinda a bum and I didn't really enjoy talking to him, because he made us feel like we were going to get ticketed and thrown in jail for accidentally getting lost. Oh well.So that next morning those two brothers came back and got Ben so they could go pull the van out of the ditch with their huge mondo trucks. The van came out of the ditch pretty easy and there is not an ounce of damage! We're pretty lucky!!!
Bottom line is this... we will never go that way again. We will never drive on on nonpaved road again. I don't want to see snow for at least another five-ten years. I am awe struck by the Pioneers and what they did. They had none of the things that we had like the boots, snow gear, snuggly, snacks! And the list could go on. In those few hours of walking I felt a little tiny bit of what the pioneers had to deal with and NO THANK YOU!!! My faith is renewed and I am so so so very thankful that it wasn't worse.
Sorry this was so long and probably made no sense, I am not a writer. But I needed to write it down while it's still fresh in my mind, so that way I can always look back and remember the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to us as a family.
For all of you reading... Don't let this happen to you. Because this does happen, and people do get lost all the time, and some don't make it back. Women always listen to your intuition, it's right about most of the time!!