I sighed with releif as it felt like a load was lifted from my chest and I could finally relax. I drove our little Mazda across the Colorado border, and started to feel better.

The trip up to this point had not been a bad one, but it was still not the most exciting thing in the world. We were driving deeper and deeper into Colorado when I saw them. Mountains. Not just any mountains, but my mountains. I could see only the silhouette through the haze, but it didn’t matter. I could distinguish Pikes Peak right away, and it wasn’t long before the rest of the range was in view. It was good to be home and everything was fine until…

I looked down at the gas guage. Crap.
“Hey Dad, you think we have another 70 miles on this tank if the gas light is on.”
“No.” His answer was simple and to the point. No problem, Brush, Colorado was coming up any time according to the map, and there’s sure to be gas there. Well, we started worrying if we’d ever make it to Brush, when we spotted a sign: Brush 22 Miles. Can we make it 22 miles? None of us were sure. It was at that point I was glad I was driving a manual… it’s easier to convserve gas that way. We cut the A/C, turned off the radio, and did everything we could to conserve energy consumption. 22 miles later we finally roll into Brush, wondering if we’ll even make it to the local gas station. Little did we know what awaited us in town…

Nothing. There was a cafe and a general store. The cafe wasn’t open on Mondays, and the general store obviously closed before 5pm. The town was smaller than LaGrange, if you can believe it. So we wandered up to a house and knocked on the door.

“Howdy,” said the young boy from behind the rickety screen door.
“Hey, do you know the closest place to get gas?” I replied, hoping there was one in town.
“Ellicott. It’s about 16 miles up the road.”
“Hmm, you think there’s someplace we could get some gas that’s closer in case we can’t make it that far?”
“Hold on.” He disappeared into the house and was replaced by what seemed to be an older version of himself. I explained the predicament to the boy (probably about 17) and he walked out to check the gas can that was sitting by the lawnmower. It was empty.
“Hmm, maybe my neighbors… Or the Anderson’s, I know they have some. Want me to run over there with ya?”
I went and got the car and the rest of my family and followed him next door to the andersons’ house. He rang the doorbell, then walked in. In a few seconds, he returned, being followed by an older gentleman wearing a cowboy hat and slacks held up by suspenders. My dad quickly ran through the story again and Mr. Anderson grabbed a key and headed off for the shed.
“Here’s about 3/4 of a gallon,” he said, emmerging from the shed with a small gas can in his hand.
We assured him it would be plenty to get us 16 miles, and he handed the can to my dad. I tried offering him a five dollar bill for the gas and courtesy, but he wouldn’t take more than two dollars. With Gas prices up where they are out there, he turned absolutely no profit. We thanked him several times, and loaded up the car for our trip to the next town. Sure enough, it had a gas station, and we bought a couple of gallons from the overpriced vendor… just enough to get us home.

Slowly everything became more and more familiar until I pulled the Protege up to my house. Home sweet home. The dog was ecstatic. Tabitha wasn’t nearly as excited to see me as I thought she’d be. She showed definite signs that she’d been cheating on me while I was away. I quickly forgave her and proceeded to tell her about Rachel. She took the news very well. She is very happy for me and wishes us the best in our relationship. I’m glad that our friendship will not suffer. 🙂

Home is about the same as I left it. I presumed that the remodelling project I was almost done with downstairs would be done upon my return, but it’s still waiting for me. They did patch it up a little, but other than that, it’s still my project. That’s pretty cool I guess. Ben has a pretty sweet system in his room now. He has a new desk, dual monitors, a game pad and keyboard (complete with led’s) for his computer, and a mini-fridge, to complete the ensemble. It’s lookin pretty sweet in there.

Well, here I am. Finally in a place I can unpack in. I’ll be here for about 10 months, then back to Michigan, hopefully to begin a year-long internship at Ao-Wa-Kiya under Pastor Bill. This is the official beginning of this phase of my relationship with Rach, and I’m still pretty excited about the whole thing.

Alright kids, I’ll have more later I’m sure. Have fun.

-Steve

This entry was posted on Monday, August 8th, 2005 at 6:37 pm and is filed under Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.