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I know this post won’t do the story justice, but for record keeping’s sake….it must be written down.  So tristen and I pride ourselves on being really fun aunts.  Our nieces and nephews have so many stories about us that will be lifelong memories.   But I think tonight may have been the topper of them all.  And we definitely had a culprit….our other sister Megan!

We are staying in St. George, UT for a couple of days before we get to Provo/Salt Lake.  It is Monday now, but last Friday a really large forest fire started from lightning.  It is still burning, so after watching the musical Cinderella we came back to our hotel.  On our way, we saw flames on the ridge that didn’t seem really far from our hotel.  So because we are the cool aunts, we got all of the kids in the car to go fire hunting!  We were going to see how close the police would let us get to the fire. 

We headed south on the 15 FWY and got of on the now famous Black Rock Road.  It is the first road in Arizona from Utah.  We got off and turned East and headed for what we thought was the fire.  The road quickly turned into a winding dirt road that was completely desolate.  I guess I started the whole experience off with the following comment, “hey guys, this is exactly how every horror movie starts out. Here we are, driving, laughing and having fun….and then we turn a corner and find a bloody woman standing in the middle of the road trying to stop us.”

At first we were laughing, but between Tristen, Megan and my comments it was getting really creepy.  It was pitch black, and there was no light in sight.  Megan, the driver, kept swerving like she saw something scary to set the mood.  Every time she did, everyone would scream!  Tristen would put her hand out her window and bang on other people’s windows to scare them.  I just kept saying creepy things like if we see a hitchhiker, he is probably a murderer and we shouldn’t stop.  If I wasn’t in on the whole thing, I would have been really scared, but this was still just the beginning. 

We probably drove six miles until we finally hit an abandoned mine with two random semi trucks.  When we got there, Megan began to do a U Turn to turn back.  I told her to go back so we could find someone.  None of the kids were too keen on that idea, so when Megan started going towards the mine again they started screaming….and Trey was starting to cry.  We drove around but didn’t find anyone so we headed back to the freeway.  On our way back, I said that if there was suddenly a barricade with mummies and bloody people holding axes we should stop our car and just run as fast as we could.  At this point Chloe started crying - probably because she was the slowest.  Megan started doing the swerves and sudden braking again which produced mass hysteria every time.  Then I whispered to Megan to pretend like the car was breaking down.  She secretly put the car in neutral and pushed on the gas to make her brand new car was doing something funny.

As she was revving the car, but it was just slowing down, EVERYONE was getting scared.  She said, “Lindsey, what is wrong?”….”Lindsey, did you push a button or something…why is my car acting funny.”  I kept saying things like, “Are you cracking a joke, Megan?” and “why did this have to happen here of all places!?”  Beyond the screaming and yelling in the back, Trey was literally FREAKNG OUT!  He was balling and yelling at the top of his lungs over and over, “CALL THE POLICE!”  I finally picked up the phone and said I was going to call Micah (just so he could here what was going on).  When I said that, Trey yelled back, “DON’T CALL MICAH…CALL THE POLICE!”  By this time -a minute into the car going bad, Chloe and Trey were crying.  Skylar and Cade were freaked out and screaming.  And Megan decided to get a heart.  She started laughing and finally told them it was a joke.  We all started laughing so hard, we were crying -except Trey and Chloe. 

It wasn’t until we got back to the freeway that Trey toughened up.  He then started saying things like, “I was only scared because i thought we were running out of gas.”  and “If we went back, I wouldn’t be scared!”  It was a priceless night, with no sightings of the fires.  I ended it all in a perfect way at the hotel.  When everyone was getting out of the car, I was hiding under the car door and grabbed their foot as they stepped down from the Suburban.  Somehow I scared each one..but especially Trey!