The Great Off Grid Ozark Adventure: part 11

Note: This content was written out long before it was published here on the blog. So although this post is being published in early 2025, it was written several months ago. If you’re just finding this post, I recommend starting with part one here to get more background.

After returning home from my last trip to Missouri, I focused in on selling my business, and getting my house ready to sell. Mary is much more detail oriented in getting our house projects finished. It’s a good thing, because I wanted to just move and let someone else deal with it! However, as we began to finish up projects, it felt really good. I’m an idea person, and a starter. I am really good at getting the ball rolling on things, and I’m also really good at turning thoughts into action, but I’m not always good at finishing things. I get bogged down in details sometimes. It felt good to see some long (and I mean REALLY long time projects) get finished up.
While this process of finishing projects felt good, it felt like we got sucked into some time warp. We continued to work toward our goal of moving by throwing away, donating, and selling many things. We even began packing some things up that we knew we wouldn’t need. We were making real progress! But the progress was incredibly slow. It seemed like as soon as I thought we were just about there, I realized that there were more things that needed to be done. It was a difficult time and we really wanted to see people, but we also had SO MUCH TO DO. So we felt torn and started feeling like we were going to always be sitting in this awkward space of preparing to move, but not really getting there. We set goals for potential move dates but that date kept getting pushed back again and again.

Finally, we hit a point where we knew it would be a matter of days, although even then things just moved slower than we liked. Part of that was because an early snow storm came through and the wet heavy snow broke a ton of our branches and left a big mess. Finally I got that all cleaned up and turned my attention to packing. We had purchased an old enclosed trailer at a good price but I spent a lot of time and effort getting it into usable condition. Although I was a little worried about fitting everything, I was actually pretty excited about packing. I have gotten pretty good at live action tetris! I packed slowly, but I was super efficient with space! I packed boxes in a way that there was almost no space wasted and I stuffed smaller things like sleeping bags in all the gaps. Finally the day came. We were leaving that day no matter what! Especially since all our bedding and everything was packed already. Unfortunately, by the time we got it all packed up and were 100% ready to go, it was already dark. Our plan was only to go a few hours to Kanab and spend the night with family then get on the road for good. Unfortunately, by this time, I was exhausted, stressed, and hadn’t had nearly enough sleep. We got everything in the cars, the kids had gone to the bathroom and I was hooking up both trailers when the jack to the horse trailer broke suddenly. Luckily, the neighbor girls had come over and went to get their dad who is a welder. We worked on some other last minute things while he welded our trailer back together. He finished up and we got ready to hit the road. Little did we know that this wouldn’t be the last of his help.

We were finally moving! It was exciting, nerve wracking, and sad. We shed some tears leaving our house. Most of our children were born in that house. We stopped for gas, then we stopped at a fast food place for dinner. Just before getting on the freeway, Mary (who was driving the Expedition with the horse trailer while I drove the truck with the cargo trailer) called to let me know that the gas gauge in the expedition was showing almost empty. I didn’t think much of it because I knew we had just gassed up and I was more worried about how heavy our trailer was. I did a good job packing it, but it was over loaded and we had a long trip ahead of us. We got on the freeway and it was very difficult to accelerate so I was biting my nails! Eventually, we got it up to acceptable freeway speeds and I was able to relax a tiny bit. Just after we got passed the last exit in town, Mary got on the walkie talkie and told us that she was getting off the freeway to double check the gas. She was worried that maybe when we stopped for dinner someone had siphoned the gas out. She was behind me and I was already passed the exit so I had to keep going and get off at the next exit that was about ten miles down the road.

I got off and navigated to the nearest gas station. It wasn’t far away. This exit is for a small town outside of Cedar City and the only thing around is that gas station. Mary called and let me know that she checked the gas and it was good, it was just some kind of glitch and she was back on the freeway headed our way. We kept her on speaker phone and I decided to head back to the freeway so that we could meet up.

All the stress and lack of sleep was starting to take a toll. This is where it nearly took my life. I had totally forgotten that the road I was going down didn’t lead right to the freeway, but that we had taken a turn. In my mind, I was headed straight back to the freeway and I wasn’t expecting any turns, stops, or anything. I was cruising back and I suddenly realized that we were going into an intersection and I had run a stop sign. It’s difficult to describe the horrific realization that came next. Not only had I run a stop sign, but there was a semi truck that had just come around the bend and we were in a direct collision course! I hit the brakes but with a massive enclosed trailer full of heavy things behind us, it was no use. I knew we were going to collide with a semi truck. I yelled out, and honestly, I didn’t remember what I yelled but because I still had the phone on speaker with Mary, they heard the whole thing take place. I yelled, “No! No! NOOOOOO!” At the last second, I let go of the brakes and tried to turn right. The truck was coming from right to left and I hoped that maybe I could miss the back of the truck. However, it was a three trailer fuel tanker trucks and we just had too much momentum. The last thought that went through my mind was that I was going to kill my son. It was awful.

The collision was kind of a blur but I heard the crashing sounds, and I felt our truck get yanked to the side. If you’ve ever cut yourself really badly, or gotten a bad injury, you feel it happen and you know it’s bad, but you don’t quite feel the pain immediately. This is what I expected to happen but it didn’t. Amazingly, our truck was hit and knocked sideways. The trailer separated from the truck and we skidded 180 degrees and about 150 feet away from the trailer. I felt the truck about to come to a stop and I called out to Ethan. He immediately said, “I’m OK!” That was such a relief. Then I checked in with myself and realized that I was also OK. We both jumped out of the truck. Ethan literally jumped out because his side got more of the damage and his door was jammed and his window had shattered.

I went to check in with the truck driver and let him know that we were OK. He had already called 911 and was on the phone. He assumed that it would be a fatality and when he saw us walking over to him he assumed we were witnesses. That was the moment that I realized that I had glass in my mouth, but it wasn’t hurting at all. Once Mary realized we were OK, she hung up and was just focused on getting to us. Some of the things I had in the back of the truck ended up in the middle of the road, including my sledge hammer and the plastic crate that our computer was in. Luckily it was a military equipment crate that is designed for that sort of thing and was packed with foam. The outer plastic cracked but the contents were all good. (I wrote this account from my laptop but I’m currently publishing it on the blog from that computer that was thrown into the middle of a highway!)

The truck we collided with was a gasoline tanker and was fully loaded. The point of impact was one of the valves. Which, in a way was a blessing because it meant that the we didn’t get stuck under the semi. On the other hand, it spilled out about 25 gallons of gas onto the road. A sheriff deputy arrived at the scene fairly quickly and once he saw that we were OK, his main priority was to close the road and clear the area to make sure the gas didn’t ignite.

Mary had texted one of our good family friends about the accident and the husband had just come home from a trip and wasn’t far from us. He came over to help. It was a good thing, because he told the tow truck drivers to take our trailer and truck to his house where he has some land. Two tow trucks had been called because our truck and trailer separated. They were both headed to different tow yards, in opposite directions and both were out of town. It would have been a nightmare to try to retrieve all our belongings. Once our truck was loaded on the tow truck, and I had finished up with the authorities, we were free to go and our friends took us to their house for the night. By the time we got there it was well after midnight.

I stayed amazingly calm through the whole ordeal. I really didn’t feel traumatized by it but I was overwhelmed with the feeling that I had just experienced a miracle. Even though I was calm and exhausted, when it was finally time to sleep I found that the accident was playing over and over again in my mind and I still had adrenaline in my system. I had no idea what our next steps were going to be or where we were going to live but I was very grateful to be alive and in a safe place for the night with my family!

To be continued…