It's funny what you remember when you're going down a road you have traveled many times before. 

On our way up to Wolf Creek, (the way we have to go anyway) we end up taking the road to Trinidad which is Interstate 25. It was pretty late when we were going up that road and of course, I get flashbacks to a few years ago when my Van was not in the best of shape. Coming up that road ended up being one of those times when my van decided to quit on me. It started in Trinidad and I somehow managed to make it up to Pueblo where my van had to be serviced. At that time we were going out to Yellowstone to run the half marathon there and I got lucky enough to have connections, through my father of course, to have someone to come get me from Denver and rescue me while I waited for my father to swoop in and come pick me up. 

I learned a lot from that trip. I learned that I'm not all that smart with vehicles and we learned what other issues the van had at the time. It had an issue with the gas tank deciding that it was half full when really it was completely full whenever you went up any kind of hill or mountain. The best part of that is when the van would randomly stop working and turn off. That came into effect whenever I got into high elevations or went up mountains. Along with the transmission puking on me, we realized that the leak that it had when I bought it was more than a "little" leak. It was what it ended up killing my transmission and driving a diesel my whole "driving" life I was not well versed in how transmission fuel was supposed to look. Not my Dad's fault by the way, just me thinking that I could get away with not looking as often thinking the leak was "small" and deciding that it will ALLLLLL BE OKKK...yea ok. We all learned what happened then and if you have been following this blog and my father's blog long enough you remember that time as well. 

Now coming into Wolf Creek with that memory it makes me smile at what I have learned and how thankful I am to have this platform and to have met so many from the Ticker. Over the years I have met many in different areas and some have helped me out on my adventures, teaching me so many lessons and giving out a helping hand with my vehicle troubles. Truth be told when the transmission died I really thought I was going to be more serious trouble. If you know Colorado Pueblo is NOT a good area and when one of the Tickers follower's Daughters came to save me it also put me back in touch with someone I met on a cruise ship which is really a small world. 

This time around I'm not in the van and will be going back to Tennessee but I am grateful that I have learned all these lessons and of course, I'm sure there are more to come when I take off again In September. I hope you all will continue to follow along and I can't wait to share those stories with you when it happens.