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EmpeyMy Best FriendAs I sit in my seat of the first day of fourth grade, an unfamiliar kid with dark black hair,who is full of energy anticipating the upcoming day strolls over to me and says “hey”. This iswhere it all began. I would never have to come to realize so much about life if it weren’t for my best friend Jared Christensen. I’ve known Jared since fourth grade, where I met him at AlpineElementary. Instantly our friendship was strong; unbreakable you could say. We’d fight; but beover it quickly, we’d do extreme sports; and have more fun than ever, and we’d get in trouble but back each other up every single time, every situation. We recently both graduated; he decided togo play baseball in Montana while I decided to go run track down at Southern Utah. Change washappening and we were going different ways. Through our whole lives and experiences together,there is one moment that sealed the deal of our friendship forever.It has been a slow summer; all I do is wake up and head off to work, come home and sitaround. I could say it has been my least exciting summer ever. After graduation, it seems like lifeshould be more intense but it’s as if I hit my peak and is downhill from here on. Of coursecollege is coming up, but that was only more school, meaning more work. My excitement levelfor that is at an all time low. I need something to happen, I need some getaway. Ever since I wasa sophomore in high school I told myself I’d take a senior trip after I had graduated. It had beentwo months and I still had not planned or even thought about a trip. It’s now early July, Ihonestly can’t take it anymore, so I drive myself up to Jared’s walk in to his house and say tohim, “Dude, we are going on a senior trip to Florida in a couple weeks; we need to get out of here.” I knew the response I would get, I honestly didn’t need to tell him, and he’d be down nomatter what. Our good friend Carson sold us some cheap buddy passes and it was set. What Inever knew was this trip would be a huge adventure with life changing experiences, whichwelded Jared and my friendship together.1
 
EmpeyIt’s a Wednesday night and we’ve been dropped off at the Salt Lake City Internationalairport. We‘re on our own, with our boarding passes, and our bags that consisted of having only aswimsuit, a couple t-shirts and underwear. We walked over to the gate where we’d board the plane, and this first flight was to JFK in New York. Already, we had an hour delay to wait, due to bad weather at our destination. That hour quickly went by, due to our excitement. I’m anxiousmore than ever as we board the plane and take off to New York. It’s a rough plane ride, becauseI’m way tired, and the plane isn’t very comfortable. As if I was sitting in a seat made out of rock,which was built for a five-foot tall man. We arrive in New York about six o’clock Eastern timeand because of our delay in Salt Lake, we miss our Next flight to Florida. All I could do is sigh,and embrace myself for constant uncomfortable sitting. The only flight later is at noon and that isa long wait, with out knowing if we would actually get on the plane, since we are using buddy passes we are on stand by. 11:30 comes around; we are sitting, tired, and hoping that we wouldget onto this plane. Being incredibly lucky, a few people didn’t show up for their flight leavingseats open for us. Around 3 o’clock we arrive in Florida, and we are relieved we finally hadmade it.Jared’s mom has a business friend out there who picks us up and shows us around andthen lends us a car and we are off to do our own thing. Soon later I had dramatic issues back home that hit me hard, I am more depressed than I’ve ever been in my life. For the rest of the dayI try to hide it and have as much fun as I could. As we are driving around that night, the wholesituation kept getting worse and worse, and I finally broke down. My body starts shaking, andtears start falling like a waterfall, I didn’t know what to do anymore. We are parked, our other friend Carson is out walking around and I was in the back seat. Jared hops out of the drivers seatand jumps into the back seat with me. He put his arm around me and pulled me in to him tight,and told me, “I got you bro.” He talked to me for a long time right there, he got me to calm downand helped the situation so much. At this one moment, I thought to myself, this is my best friend2
 
Empeyand he’s totally got my back through anything, no matter what. In my mind I knew all of that before, but this sealed the deal knowing Jared was my best friend for life.We go back after that, throw on a movie and fall asleep. I wake up the next day feelingmuch better than I did the night before. I am truly blessed that I had such a great friend with methat day. As the trip went on we all went to the beach, and hung out, and had an awesome time.The adventure wasn’t over though, getting home ends up being a challenge. We are leaving onSaturday, and after we check in at the airport we quickly find out the plane is full and we have nochance of getting on. The problem with this is that the next flight is at two o’clock and that is sixhours away and it was likely we would not get on that flight either. In this situation we have threeoptions we could choose from. First we could wait until two and hope we get on that flight, or we could find a way to get to Orlando within three hours; fly from there to New York and so on.We could fly to New Jersey take a bus to New York fly from New York to San Diego and flyhome from San Diego the next day. After thinking clearly through all three options, we decide onthe third one. We take a quick flight to New Jersey, after arriving we hop on to a bus that takes usto New York. This bus ride is bumpy, hot, slow, and very uncomfortable. I can smell another  passenger’s body odor, and my gag reflexes are going crazy. Our flight is leaving in a half hour and we are stuck in traffic in New York. It felt as if I was in a Flintstones vehicle with a paraplegic driver. We finally make it to JFK but the bus driver is stopping at every other  passenger’s gate except for ours. With time ticking away, we have no choice but to jump off the bus and run to our gate as fast as we could. This being the only logical option in our minds tomake the flight on time. JFK could be the biggest airport I have ever been to in my life. We ran,and ran, and ran some more. I’m sure in total we sprinted over a mile throughout JFK. Runningup to the gate, we are seconds away of missing the flight but we make it. The flight to San Diegogoes by fairly quickly even though it is a long flight.3
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