Lessons on The Hell’s Revenge Tour

What a week so far.

We are currently on our family trip, and it has been amazing. We met up with my baby brother and his family in Denver. We then scooted over to Moab to do some serious glamping (pic below). We will be hitting the Grand Canyon, Sedona, St. George (Bryce and Zion), followed by a stop in LA.

Mark and I identify ourselves as great travel parents. We love to travel with the girls and share new experiences. It makes up for the times when we struggle with being fully present in every moment. And we are working on this, too.

This trip, we wanted to create some adventure, so Mark found a great whitewater rafting trip as well as a sunset ATV tour. He assured us that he signed up for the tour with a driver. The whitewater trip was a blast, and the ATV tour was certainly an experience. I should have been clued in when the title of the tour was Hell’s Revenge.

When we arrived at the meeting point for Hell’s Revenge, we discovered that our “Guided Tour” meant we would be driving with 5 other ATVs and our “Guide” would be leading us. Note to self, guide is not the same thing as a driver on ATV tours. In typical Mark and Ali fashion, we went with it. The girls were a bit nervous, but they dove in, too.

The guide assured us that in 400 tours, there has never been an accident on his watch. So, we trusted and proceeded. Once we arrived at the trail, my heart sank. We would be driving 400 feet from ground level on a trail that only had an 18-inch buffer on each side. Our youngest instantly lost her cool. 

Mark put on his psychiatrist hat and immediately went into a quick cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT session). He said, “What is the evidence that supports we will be fine?” Our super smart girl replied, “That there have been 400 trips with no accidents, no car issues, nothing that would support us being scared.” Mark said, “Exactly. There is no evidence to support that we are in danger.”

Well, we navigated across the narrow path with the 18-inch buffer, and I held a death grip the entire way. We made it. And we could feel ourselves relax into the challenge a bit more. For the next hour, we were going up and down steep hills and seeing some of the most incredible views.

And then, it was engine stall number 1. Seemed odd. We restarted the car with no issue, so we kept on moving. The guide announced that we would be going up the steepest hill of the night. And it was a big one. We were the last car in the line which in retrospect was a blessing.

Things were going fine until halfway up, when our engine stalled. Time froze. We threw the emergency brake on because we started to roll backwards. Thankfully, this stopped us. We had nothing to do but focus on what we could control, despite our girls crying in the back.

We turned on the engine, put the car in reverse, prayed… and proceeded to back down this huge hill. Our guide eventually saw us and drove down to help.

So many reflections here. The first being, if nothing like this happened in 400 rides, how did we get so lucky? The next several being super positive. That during a serious situation, we kept calm and responded with what we could control. And that was enough. 

Major lesson. Focus on what you can control; it is the best thing to do - always. If we tried to control anything more than we could, we would have been in trouble because we would have lost our focus. Same goes for life. If you are trying to control all the things… stop. Focus on what is most important and put your efforts here. You will remain calm in the storm and calm in your everyday.

Now… other reflection. Mark’s CBT session still holds up, but it must be addended. He will now have to say, in 400 trips if only 1 mishap has been reported, then the odds are in our favor. Further, the odds of us getting stuck on a steep mountain in an ATV because of an engine stall are probably even more in our favor. Life is sweet. Things are good.

The bumps, the near misses, the worries… all the things are part of the journey. Let’s embrace it. It’s all we can do.

Sending you love and a PSA to get your cars in for oil changes. Turns out, the stall was due to an oil leak.

Xoxoxo,
Ali

ULUM Resorts - Moab, UT