A Trip to Remember

Emily Price

English 1010

Dr. Haslam

January 6, 2019

“Emily wake up!” says Abbie, my little sister, throwing my door open. She runs over to

my bed and pulls the covers off of me. The cold rushes over my body and I look over towards

her and stare at her hoping she can see that I am going to murder her.

“Dad said we can go four-wheeling up the mountain today!” she said ​while climbing onto

my bed trying to jump on me to wake me up more.

“Ok, I’ll be up in a minute,” I replied while rubbing away the sleep from my eyes. ​I slowly

walk upstairs, tripping over the step and trying to recover from the startling wake-up call.

“Look who decided to wake up,” my dad replied in his usual joking manner. “You ready

to go?”

“Yes, let’s go!” Abbie replied excitedly. I walk outside and see the side by side in the

trailer and the four-wheeler in the bed of the truck. I walk past the trailer and open the back door

of the truck. We all pile into the truck with my brother sitting next to me ​and my mom, dad, and

little sister all sitting in the front​. We drive up out of the neighborhood, onto 7800 S and past

Mountain View Corridor, ​getting closer towards my family owned mountain​.

Finally, the mountain is in my sight. This trail has been in my family for years, it belongs

to my grandpa’s brother. My dad pulls off to the side of the road and ​my dad starts to look for

the key to the gate. This road is family owned so no one else is allowed on it without the key​.

My family and I get out of the car, ​and Abbie is staring down the fore-wheeler​. Abbie jumps up

and down while my dad slowly pulls the side by side out of the trailer, ​careful not to hit either
side of the trailer.​ ​My dad then pulls out the ramps and climbs up into the truck and slowly lets

the fore-wheeler down​. My brother hops on the four-wheeler, ​never letting anyone else get a

chance to ride it​, when it is out of the bed of the truck with my ​dad and mom getting into the

front two seats and then my sister and I shimmy into the tight back seat.​ We drive off the short

paved road and onto the dirt road. We stop shortly after and my dad gives me the key to the

gate.

“Will you unlock the gate?” he asks me.

I have never gotten the privilege to open the gate before. I wiggle out of the back and

run up towards the gate. ​I wriggle through the other side of the gate​ and try to get the key in the

lock, but am having a hard time. I finally get the lock off and my brother pulls forward.

“Took you long enough,” Matt’s grating voice replied as he zooms past me with a trail of

dirt thrown into my face. I shut the gate once the rest of my family comes through. We speed off,

but has to stop in the middle of the road because of cows are everywhere. My brother starts to

slow down in front of us, worrying that he will get hit by a cow protecting the young calf. The big

cows eventually move out of the way and we slowly drive past while trying to avoid the poop

that they left. We speed off and go over the first switchback, my dad turing really quick, worrying

we might fall off the road. We continue up the mountain with my dad driving,taking only 20

minutes to get to the top of the mountain.​We slowly stumble out of the side by side with our legs

feeling like jello. ​I walk out and look at the beautiful scenery, noticing all the hills and beautiful

trees. The sun’s rays make the rocks shine. My dad walks behind me, coming to explain all the

different cities on the other side of the mountain.

“Do you see that over there?” my dad says while pointing to the left.

“Isn’t that Tooele?” I reply hoping I’m right.

“Yeah!”
 “That is also the Great Salt Lake over there to the right,” my brother says, while walking

over towards us and sticking his tongue out at me, while my dad wasn’t looking.

We walk back to the fore-wheeler as my mom pulls out the lunchbox that was hidden

away in the side by side.

“Matt, these two are yours,” my mom says while opening the plastic bag and looking at

the sandwiches. My brother takes them from her and takes a big bite out of the sandwich. My

mom continues handing out the rest of the sandwiches and we all eat our sandwiches. After we

finish eating, we start to clean up.

“You guys ready to head down the mountain? Emily do you want to learn how to drive

the four-wheeler?” my dad asks while wiping the crumbs off his face.

“Sure,” I say sheepishly, feeling a little nervous since this being the first time I have been

able to drive the four-wheeler.

We switched machines and now I was driving the four-wheeler, with my dad sitting

behind me. ​I turn the key and the engine revs to life. I put the machine in the right gear and

slowly press on the gas. We do not move, then shortly after realizing that I need to press on the

gas harder in order to go anywhere.​ We speed down the mountain, leaving the rest of my family

in the dust. The wind tosses the little hairs that escaped from my bun and the dirt slowly

surrounds us like a tornado. I see the first switchback that I had to go down in order to get down

the mountain. I slow down and try to take a wide turn with my dad whispering in my ear, instead

of shouting, on what control to use. We keep going down the mountain when my dad says

loudly,

“Stop right up here.” I press on the brakes slowly. “Where is the rest of the family?”

I look back and see nothing, but the narrow road and dirt.

“I don’t know?” I reply back to my dad.

 “We should turn around. Something could have happened to them,” he said.

“Ok,” I replied nervously.

I look back and see I have a little amount of room to turn around. I look over the edge of

the trail and see a huge drop my dad and I would fall down if I go to quickly. I put the

four-wheeler into reverse and ​move the handles before I press on the gas, nervous that

something bad would happen if I did not change direction before. I then slowly press on the gas

with the back of the fore-wheeler starting to turn towards the steep drop off the edge of the

mountain.

“You need to hit it harder if you want to go anywhere,” my dad proceeded to say. I push

on the gas a little bit harder and we go flying back towards the edge of the mountain.

“Stop!” my dad yelled as loud as he could. I slam on the brakes, the jolt throws us both

forward and then return to how we were sitting before. I look back a little with my foot still

slammed against the brake; one of the back wheels is off the side of the mountain, looking over

the wheel, ​I see the pit of darkness that is so close that we could fall into, I knew we should

have listened to my mom when she told me to bring the helmets​.​ I start to shake and I could feel

the tears starting to come.

̈ ̈Hey, it is going to be ok. What you need to do is keep your foot on the break. If you do

not, then we are going to fall off the mountain. Put it back into drive and slowly let your foot off

the break. Let me control the gas.¨ My dad sits closer to me, trying to reach the gas button. I do

what my dad says and slowly let my foot off the brake as he pushes on the gas really fast. We

scream forward and back with all four wheels on the dirt trail. I did not realize I was holding my

breath while that was happening, until I let go and took a big gasp of air. While trying to relieve

myself of the shock, I hear my dad start to laugh.

“You ok?” he asks in between his chuckles.

 “Maybe you should drive the rest of the time,” I proceeded to say, still shaking. ​I can hear

a faint engine and I see the rest of my family coming down the mountain. They finally come

close to us so we are able to talk to them.

“Where were you guys?” my dad asks while trying to hold back his laughter.

“We saw a deer and tried to take a picture of it, but it left too quickly,” replied my little

sister excitedly.

“Can I take the four-wheeler back, this is boring. I like to go fast and mom drives slow,”

my brother replied, looking annoyed with everything.

We switch back, ​with me sitting in the back again still trying to recover from everything​,

and head down the mountain back to the car. We load the machines onto the truck and the

trailer, then hop into the truck.

“Emily almost drove us off a mountain,” my dad blurts while laughing, ​as we all get into

the truck.

“What?” my mom replied looking back at me, looking scared.

My brother looks over to me and his eyes get really big. ​My dad goes on to tell the story

as he pulls out and gets back on 7800S. We all start laughing, ​but my face turns red from

embarrassment, but still continue to laugh with all of them.​ This was one family outing we will

never forget.