Why Am I Here?

part 1.
On October 12th of 2014, my eldest son, his wife and their two children were in a horrific car accident. My wife and I got word of that at 6:00 am. It was a Sunday morning. 3 days prior we had gone over the mountains to be in town, to visit with them.

We had a pleasant visit with all of the children. 4 of our kids live 60 miles north of Seattle Washington. (All of the kids are grown, and living their own lives). The youngest is 25 and the eldest is 38. The eldest has a family and lives in the Reno Nevada area.

6 am, bad news. The family is in a hospital in Redding California. We called around to see who could do whatever was needed, and Mrs. Squatch and I got the golden ticket. We live in the hills, basically retired. Since we didn’t have to worry about employer attitudes regarding absences, we packed what we thought we would need and headed for Redding. (More interesting tales, what to do about the place, the dogs, cat, garden, firewood, and more).

Where do I start? The obstacles? I live in a remote area. The big town, the county seat only has a population of 42,763, and it is 50 miles from my place. That’s where the Wal-Mart and McDonald’s is. The airport is one of those that can’t land anything very big,and the next closest bigger airport is 160 miles away. The North Cascade Highway was already closed that late in Oct., and the Seattle terminal was 250 miles away.

The Wenatchee airport does have a connecting flight to Seattle, where I could buy passage to Sacramento Ca. Options? I could drive to Wenatchee and catch a flight to seattle, but not on sunday. Option 2, we can Drive to Seattle and catch a flight to Sac., and rent a car, and drive 240 miles north to Redding.

We went with option 3 that I never mentioned. We decided that we could get there faster if we just drove. ( Here is where I tell you how we actually got outta the mountains, and all of the adventure a 60-year-old guy recognizes).

We arrived in Redding Monday morning, the accident had happened around 2 or 3 am, sunday. My son’s wife, and the youngest of the kids were hurt, but not needing admission to the hospital were discharged. The other two, my son and his daughter were severely injured. Broken and more, and in the I.C.U. ward.

We spent a week in Redding, and there will be tales in the telling on that. Sunday came, and our son was patched up enough to be sent home to heal. Our grand-daughter wouldn’t be released yet, and we wouldn’t be able to stay with her as ” politics”, seem to get in the way of that. ( Here’s where another adventure happens) I can’t stop it here, so I’ll answer the Question….there are too many ways of responding to why am I here.

WE, my wife and I are here in the Reno area helping family. That is one reason. I can’t even number the true answer to that. I guess you will find out more later….in the continuing saga of my journey.