- October 17, 2023
Derek called me on my way home from work one day and said “Mom, I got the 4-wheeler stuck in the creek”. It had been raining for several days and the creek was high and raging like a river. He’s tried to cross it and gotten stuck in the middle and left it there. Derek, his sister Morgan and I rode another 4-wheeler down to the creek and could not recover it from the side we were on and decided we were going to have to find a way across the creek. We ended up finding a tree that had fallen across and the three of us shimmied our way across in the pouring, freezing rain only to find out that where we crossed only took us half way across. The creek had split at some point and we needed to get across where it split to reach the side we needed to be on. As luck would have it we found another felled tree and again the three of us shimmed across that one. It was getting dark bu now and we were all freezing. We walked back down the creek bed until we saw a shining light in the distance, it was the stick 4-wheeler. Derek was able to reach it and pull it close enough that he could jump on it and ride it out of the creek BUT we were on the wrong side of the creek and I wasn’t about to try and cross it again to get home. The three of us got on the 4-wheeler with me driving and decided we’d have to find our way to the road and ride on the back country roads home. About half way home Derek tapped me on the shoulder and said “Mom, let me drive, I know your hands are freezing and I’m the one that created this mess. So he moved to the front and got us home in one piece. As soon as we got home he ran back into the woods to the creek to retrieve the other 4-wheeler we had left there when we started our foot adventure to the other side. He was always so considerate and did everything he could to make his mom proud. I love you bud❣️