The art show that will never be...

It all began On Friday...welll, this part of the story did anyway. WE have been needing a new tire on the car for sometime, only one, the other 3 were replaced within the last year and you know how tires go, one dies here or there and so we needed one, and since we were off to  the art show on Saturday with the car loaded we figured, it was time.  No problem, i took the car over and got a new tire and they rotated them for me as well. Great, go fill the tank, go home to pack the car! YIPEEEEEEEEEE we are going to do so great at this show! hot weather, long hair ladies, and our hair forks and sticks would rescue them from the heat!!! I was so excited and feeling really good about it all. We had been over producing products for a couple weeks, and had lots of new beauties to show and sell. I had picked up several packing tips over the last few years from various places, and we had gotten everything prepared the night before. Ou tent canopy and its weights were ready. The tables are in the car, all we have to do is put our boxes in in the morning.

The show was in Salt Lake City. We happen to live about 160 miles east of SLC. The show set up was to begin at 6 A.M....yes, i see your brains calculating..we had to get up at 2;30 A.M. to pack the car, have enough coffee and get on the road. No problem. Alarm is set, but Stacy has always had the uncanny ability to wake himself a few minutes before the alarm goes off, so we were awake without the buzzer, which was nice. the coffee pot had been prepped the night before as well, we had coffee. We were worried about driving this time of day because of animals in the road, but allowed extra time to be slow and cautious.
We got packed, into the car and prayed over our trip as is our custom. WE asked the Lord to protect us and to allow for a great day. Some how that was answered, i think because we are alive. We are OFFF!!!!
We are listening to a book on CD, its a great book by the way, Watership Down, by Richard Adams. Its about rabbits, but is about life too and its very entertaining. Its a long book and we were looking forward to the drive for this, we were on disc 7 of 14, right at the exciting part where Hazel-Rah gets shot...you'll have to go find out the rest of that tale for yourself.
We were more than halfway there, everything going good, when we spot a deer in the road.

WE both saw it and we slowed as well as swerved a little, she was facing the opposite side of the road so we were hoping she would bolt that way as we slowed. ( let me tell you a quick thing, when we moved here everyone told us animals on the road are a big problem, and out here they are big, deer, elk, moose. They can kill you, come through the windshield kicking, squish you to death, or more frequently people swerve to miss them, overcorrect, roll the car and get hurt that way. The advice was BRAKE don't swerve, a little hit is better than a roll-over) SO actually it was more of an evasive move than a swerve, thinking surely she would stay there, run away or saunter off....well, turn and bolt is what she did,  she suicided into our NEW TIRE! No kidding, she turned and rammed us. we pulled off the road shaken but not harmed,the deer was gone. It was about 5:30 A.M., in a dark deep canyon in the mountains between towns in rural UT. there is no cell phone service to be had. Did you hear that?!?!  Cell phones do not help when you are in a canyon and crashed!

we start to put our flashers on, and being a glorious summer saturday morning there are lots of people on this road heading to the hills lake for fishing......OH no, a truck pulling a trailer,...we need help, we are standing out side the car hoping to flag someone down to drive to the top of the canyon and call highway patrol for us...people don't stop to help, even if you are waving your arms. This guy didn't even look at us, or the road evidently, because he hit the poor deer again...his truck cleared it but his little trailer did not. ThumpThumpThumpthimpthimmmm....now HE is on the other side of the road, distressed and the deer is still laying in the road.
(is there a limit on how long a blog post can be i wonder...)
Stacy walks over to make sure they are ok, while i am making sure other drivers slow before they get there by blinking our lights, evidently people don't look at emergency flashers on crashed cars by the side of the road either...The other folks are fine , they did not see us or the deer. Thier phone has a cell phone booster and it can't get a signal either. 

Stacy and the other  man drag the deer off the road. His trailer axle is totaled, but the truck cleared the deer and they are fine, they move thier camping stuff into the truck. A few other drivers have now stopped , and someone has agreed to call the police at the top of the canyon. What a boon that we had both our cell phones charged! what a great idea to get a new tire for a deer to aim at! WHOO HOO ! we are having fun now......

Its almost light out, the traffic is amazingly heavy. One officer arrives and goes to the other guy first, not to us. I have neglected to tell you, our car is undriveable and bleeding profusely. the transmission is busted open, the drivers side door will barely open, the headlight is smashed, the whole front corner is severely smashed. WE are the ones who had the accident, please come and talk to us!!!!! both officers that arrived went to the truck first....
SOOOooooo, we wait. finally they get to us, we do our report, licesnse,registration,insurance please over and over over, tow truck driver arrives.....so sorry, we do this all day long, all year long, you are lucky to be alive and not hurt. OK Lord, Thank you....

The town we are going to tow you to is Heber...its the only town here, and its saturday morning. Oh, and by the way, Heber doesn't have a car rental place, neither do they have taxis or buses. SO sorry. No ,we don't know anyone going back to your town.  They tow us to the yard and lock up the car, and we call the insurance company (and the art show to let them know our booth will be empty and we must forfeight our fee for the day..GAH.) Yes, she at the insurance company tells me, there is no available help for you there, so sorry.

OK, so Stacy and i begin to walk through town from the autobody shop lot, in our-not-meant-for- walking-shoes-and-clothes-for-art-shows wondering what we are going to do. Surely there is something...
WE go over to the last rumored place that a bus may stop occasionally....perhaps we can get a bus home to get the other car and come get our stuff. Our stuff, that we make a living off of, packed into and left in the crushed car.....its about 7 A.M now...Long day so far...

Noone in the corner "HUB" ever heard of a greyhound going through there, no we don't know anything. Do you have a phone book we can borrow? at least now our phones work. I call every car rental place, all of which are in the NEXT town over, about 30 more miles, noone delivers, picks up or has anything available, So sorry. Remember those commercials " ENterprise, We come to you..*small print* unless you are in a small town in Utah and desperate, then we don't. SO sorry."  WE have money with us, we have a card we can use to get the car, we have the means, the cash, jewelry to give you , we can pay! SO sorry...

SO, we are now on high gear creative tryng to think of what to do. We know noone we can call. There is a car dealer in Heber who also has a place in Roosevelt, maybe they need to take something back and we can ride...they are not open on saturday until later, maybe, if they come in. .....We have to hitch a ride home. WHAT?!?! We have to hitch a ride home......floods of old movies, things Dad told you never to do, horror stories of the CSI hitchikers found dead, stranded, mutilated.......But we really had no other option, than walking 100 miles so we prayed again, got a piece of cardboard, which should have been easy, but they had JUST gotten everything into the dumpsters and the truck JUST came and emptied it and there is not a scrap of cardboard in the store, but lets see if we can empty a box for you...thank you so much.

 We make a Roosevelt sign and start walking, begging every car that goes by for help. Nope. we walked about 2 miles, settling into a pattern of hearing the cars, turning with our sign to plead.....and a driver pulls over. HALLELUJAH! by now, i don't care about those CSI episodes, they can drop me off wherever they want i just couldn't believe i was going to have to walk 100 miles and was SO happy. THe blessed angel who stopped was a young man named Abe, and  he said," You guys are clean and had the look of expectancy that someone should help you, i knew you weren't used to living like this , you really needed help!"  he was only going half way, but it would help. YES, very much thank you!

SO we ride with Abe, Stacy in the front me in the back seat crying,...out of relief? gratefuleness to Abe? exhaustion? sore feet? joy over A/C? Desperation? i don't know, probably all of it....But we are safe and not harmed and God is good, He sent Abe. Thank you so much, you helped us more than you will ever know.
WHen we get to his destination we profusely thank him, get his card and give him ours, take our sign and trekk out again. Now we are half way home, and dropped off at the bottom of the hill.....its 9:30 am and we thank the Lord for good cloud cover, because it is hot and we have only a little water left in the bottle we got at the place where they have nothing else available....
we start the same turning and pleading again, and we talk and walk, we found 2 quarters, lots of bones by the road, look at that cloud shape......we are almost to the ONLY rest area on this road for a hundred miles, literally, and i said to Stacy, if noone stops by the time we are near there i need to get to that vending machine. I had no breakfast but a few bites of an apple muffin and coffee since 2 ;30 am......any kind of fuel will be welcome.
all of a sudden a large blue car turns around....with a very elderly couple and thier dog.....they stop and step out and say,   now pay attention this is a turning point in my life,
 " us 2 old goats couldn't let another 2 old goats keep walking in this heat, where you headin'?"
Well, my joy at the ride was covered by being called an old goat for the first time in my life, and then quickly covered again by the fact that i FEEL like a VERY old goat, probably DO look like one and will be anything, if they will let us sit in thier old floaty lincoln and have a ride...Thank you Lord, for Old goats....it was a huge favor they did us, as they were on thier way to water thier property in the other direction and town was 50 miles back, they said "we never had no money so this is our way of helping in the world"...again, Thank you Lord, for the angels you have sent to our aid.  ANd why is our dog behaving, they said?  she never behaves around strangers and always barks her head off....not one bark, and lots of kisses from the pup later, we are home safe. We give them a box of snowflakes as thanks as they would not take gas money, and they were off to do thier watering...

We are home. Sunburned, walked over 4 miles with a cardboard sign, in pretty shoes meant for sitting and selling hair forks in, Stacy in shoes also not meant for walking.....we go in the house and our pups are very glad to see us 10 hours early.
We need to change and get back to our car...do we go now or rest a bit? lets sit for just a minute, no lets go, no lets sit......an hour later we both wake up, change and get back in the car to go get our stuff....
Well, the good news is that we know now that we are NOT supposed to be doing art shows, that was our 3rd try and they were consecutively worse outcomes (at least at Parma, Jen and Jerry, NOTHING happened. never thought i would be happier for NOTHING to happen) and we are not sure if we are keeping the brand new canopy and weights to go with it or selling it...perhaps we will use it when we are camping as shade....