Tree Hunting Part 2

As I said in part one, every year growing up we cut down a fresh Christmas tree. The year that we got married my parents bought their first fake Christmas tree. As a newly married woman, I was bound and determined to carry on the tradition of my youth. The first year that we were married we were going to spend Christmas at Disney World with Bryan's parents and some of his siblings but I wanted a real tree anyway.

I convinced Bryan and the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 1999 we headed out in a 2 wheel drive pickup with our permit in hand. We had donuts and hot chocolate too. Using the BLM's lousy maps we headed for the west desert by Delta. We took what we thought were the right roads. Along the way somewhere we decided that we were lost and tried to turn around. There wasn't a lot of snow on the ground, but there were patches and there was mud.

We got stuck. Big time. We spent an hour or so trying to get the truck out. We weren't too nervous. We thought that surely someone would come along and help us. No one did.

After a couple of hours, we decided that we had better start walking because the desert in November gets cold at night. There was no one around, so our hope was to get to a road that had a little more traffic. We walked and walked. After what we think was about eight miles, the sun was setting and a jeep pulled up alongside us. Bryan and I lived in Orem at the time and the kid driving happened to live in Springville. He volunteered to drive us home. I was so relieved. I remember telling Bryan as we were walking that I couldn't go another step.

We got dropped off, and tried to laugh about it. The next day, Bryan went out with his dad to try to get the truck (which belonged to Bryan's work!) unstuck. They couldn't get it to budge. The next weekend Bryan went out with a tow truck driver who eventually got it out with a winch. What a relief.

We ended up with out a tree.

The next year, I some how got Bryan to go out again. And starting that year, my parents went out tree hunting with us. I think Bryan would still go out because he knew how important it was to me.

Coming up...tree hunting in Oregon...