“What’s that sound?” my mom asked.
From the back seat of the truck, I could hear the faint whistling, too.
“There’s some grass stuck in the wheel,” my dad replied.
We kept driving. I watched the sagebrush roll by out the window. Even from inside the truck, I could smell its faint, sweet scent. This was the smell of vacations in my childhood, of long summer road trips around the interior west. We’d hop from national park to national park in our trusty pickup, camping at night in the sleeper canopy in the back.
Our truck on an earlier adventure
At 14 and 17, Alex and I were starting to outgrow the back seat—particularly Alex, who was now approaching six feet tall. His long legs propped against either side of the passenger seat, he was seemingly absorbed in a novel and didn’t look up until I asked the family at large:
“So how are we related to these people again?”
“George is our first cousin, twice removed,” he said.
After a pause, he elaborated. “He’s Grandpa’s cousin, so he’s two generations above us, and that’s why he’s considered ‘twice removed.’ His daughter is our second cousin, once removed, and her kids are our third cousins.”
I blinked, trying to digest that.
“And I’m my own grandpa,” said my mom, laughing.
We’d never met these cousins, but they lived in Wyoming…and as we were driving through, my dad had arranged to meet them at a rest stop.
Driving through Wyoming
The presumed wad of grass continued to squeal as we approached the exit. Alex put his book back in the seat pocket and leaned over to check on Tortie, the pet turtle he’d somehow acquired on this road trip.
As we pulled into the rest stop, a small knot of twenty-somethings stood up and waved their arms energetically at us. I stared at them blankly. Were they the cousins we’d come to meet?
My mom rolled down the window, and their shouts instantly changed the mood in the car.
“It’s on fire!”
My dad swerved into a parking spot as a maroon minivan pulled up beside us. An elderly man looked down at us from the minivan with a benign smile.
“Uncle George!” my dad yelled, gesticulating wildly at the minivan. “Get away from the truck. It’s gonna blow!”
We all leapt from the truck, Alex carefully evacuating Tortie the turtle.
Chaos ensued. Flames were issuing from somewhere in the vicinity of the left back wheel—uncomfortably close to the gas tank, and right below where I’d been sitting.
My mom ran to rescue our dog, Browny, from the truck canopy. Holding the 90-pound dog away from traffic with one hand, she dialed 911. My dad lugged out the cooler and attempted to douse the flames with milk and melted ice. Alex and I ran down the hill with ziplock bags to get more water from the stream. I’d kicked off my shoes during the long car ride, and my bare feet prickled as they hit the rocks and scraggly sage.
While we were at the stream, a lady blessedly turned up with a miniature fire extinguisher. The miniature fire extinguisher joined my dad’s cooler ice melt and milk against the angrily smoldering flames.
And then came a huge explosion.
“Get back! It’s not worth it!” yelled the fire extinguisher lady to my dad over the general din of the onlookers. He was still crouched next to the wheel with the milk.
Everyone, including my dad, looked around for the source of the explosion. The truck appeared intact. Then they noticed the tire had caught fire and burst, with a sound like a cannonball.
The fire truck arrived at the scene. A crowd of onlookers were grouped at a distance around our truck. My mom was holding a giant dog and a turtle. Our clothes were scattered around the parking lot like they’d been ejected from the back of the vehicle. They must have been caught in the scramble to get the dog and the cooler out. My dad was crouched near the smoldering remains of the tire.
The fire people were surprised to find the vehicle intact. Usually, they said, everything would have burned.
I learned later that when my dad pulled onto the exit ramp, he noticed the first sign of a problem—the brakes were out. Not wanting to panic the rest of us, he hadn’t said anything. The ramp had been uphill, so he’d been able to coast to a stop.
An hour after our truck had been towed away, the four of us were seated at a diner with three generations of our new relatives. The usual “How are you?” or “Tell me about yourself,” seemed to miss the mark in the wake of our recent introduction by possibly exploding vehicle. If anyone had ever arrived with a bang, we had.
“So,” said someone finally. “Would you like to stay with us tonight? I imagine that truck isn’t going anywhere.”
And so it was that we met our distant cousins and spent an unexpected weekend at their Wyoming ranch.
Leave a Reply