After spending time in the mountains — even the limited amount of time that I’ve spent in them — you begin to learn what you need to pack to have an enjoyable (and safe) time. Sturdy shoes, plenty of water, plenty of layers, sunscreen (for the adventurous but pale), snacks and a rain jacket, even if there’s not a cloud in the sky. A camera to capture what will probably be an amazing view is important. Good company usually helps.

I scoffed, recently, at hikers my boyfriend and I saw heading up one of Colorado’s more formidable mountains — Longs Peak, at 14,259 feet — in only shorts and T-shirts. The day was sunny, but clouds and fog quickly gathered over the mountain peaks, and as we headed back down the trail a light rainfall became a torrential downpour with thunder that echoed through the mountains. Even with our rain jackets, we were soaked, but we felt fortunate to have what gear we had.

Despite these general preparations, I can still get caught off-guard. Which leads to my boyfriend, Patrick, and I sitting on a rock at dawn, shivering our butts off. A little background: We decided to go to a place near Aspen, Colo., called the Maroon Bells. If you have ever seen a picture of Colorado mountains, you’ve probably seen the Maroon Bells — they are picture-perfect peaks towering over a pristine lake that sits at the bottom of a lush valley filled with wildflowers in the summer. Going there is like walking into a postcard. We had hiked the area the day before, and decided that it would be ideal to see the mountains at sunrise, when the lake is still and calm and mirror-like.

So we blearily got dressed at 5 a.m. and drove toward the Bells, watching the sky begin to grow lighter in the east. I wore my Chaco sandals (a Colorado staple), khakis, a T-shirt and a fleece. Patrick was dressed similarly. We grabbed a small picnic blanket and headed toward the lake. Photographers huddled along the lake’s edge, setting up tripods or snapping shots of the perfect reflection of the mountains in the water. The mountains were still dusky grey, but the effect was fantastic. I pulled out my camera, took a picture and stared as the battery light flickered.

“My battery’s almost dead!” I said.

A few minutes later, I handed the camera to Patrick for him to take a picture, and it shut off as soon as he finished. We were camera-less. In what felt like the same minute, the sun rose triumphantly in the sky, casting the Maroon Bells in a glorious rosy-red color. We gazed at it in awe, silent. And shivering.

Mornings in the mountains are COLD. Even in the middle of August. We had forgotten how cold. The photographers hadn’t forgotten — they were bundled in winter hats and warm jackets. We lamely tried to pull the edges of the picnic blanket around ourselves, and then decided that it would be put to better use to cover our naked toes. We also remembered that we had our cell phones with us, and decided to try to use them to take pictures. My camera responded with a fake “shutter” sound with every picture I snapped until I was able to look through the settings and shut it off.

And so we were now the unprepared, huddled together, a blanket tucked around our feet, our camera dead, our cell phones held at arm’s length in an attempt to capture the glory of the sun casting its gorgeous blush on the mountains. Eventually we put the phones away and just sat, my hand on his knee and his arm around my shoulders. And all the layers and working cameras in the world couldn’t have made the moment much lovelier.

Sometimes the best things come when you’re least prepared for them, and the surprise makes it all the better.

I have never been accused of being “cheap” per se. I do buy nice things. Things that will last. It just makes more sense to me to buy one thing that lasts a long time instead of buying the same low-quality item over and over again. While this is true, I definitely try to cut costs when I can. I tend to wait a long time on every single purchase. My Amazon cart is full of 35 such items, items that I just don’t know if I really want yet.

A couple weeks ago I attended the wedding of my friends Adam and Emily. I am not sure exactly when the splitting of a hotel room becomes socially unacceptable, but for the wedding I split a room for the weekend with three other people. Why spend 230 if I can knock it down to 57.5? I thought. This line of thinking was not born out of cheapness – I just thought I could get 173 dollars worth of enjoyment in other ways. What I failed to include in my calculations was the pleasure I find in being able to breathe.

One of the balancing acts of sharing living space is the use of the bathroom. The normal constraints all apply — we all need to shower regularly, we all need to dispose of bodily waste in a hygienic manner, we all need to spend hours fixing our hair. With a hotel however, these normal uses behave like they are on HGH; we all feel extra dirty from travel, we spend little time at the hotel so bathroom usage is concentrated and finally, all of our normal routines are upset; we eat different foods, we are stressed from being in different surroundings and our GI track responds accordingly.

So on this recent trip, splitting a room with 3 other adults created quite the delicate situation. There were two males and two females. Apparently, the two females smelled of roses every day of their lives, while at least one of the males pretty much farted constantly (Note: I was not the constant farter, although I definitely contributed occasionally on that front.). I was intimidated into pooping down stairs, in the main floor bathroom, so as not to offend the sensitive olfactory senses of the ladies. This made my tragedy all the more lamentable — it need not have happened.

On the final morning, we went about our normal procedures — girls in the shower, followed by breakfast. We returned to the room and I immediately hopped into the shower. I shampooed my hair and moved on to my arms and chest when I heard the door open. I paused mid-lather, in confusion.

“Hello?”

Laughter answered. Male laughter.

Matt.

Matt, who had broken wind, and my nostrils, countless times already that weekend.

“I have to poop man!” He tried to defend himself.

“Whatever! The steam will intensify it! This room is tiny!” I screamed in frustration. I was naked after all, so my options for defense were rather limited. I began throwing water over the shower curtain.

More laughter.

He flushed.

“Sorry man! I had to go!”

I finished my shower.

I opened the curtains. A soup like mixture of steam, dove body wash and foul human excrement met me. It enveloped me and penetrated, coating nose, mouth, lungs.

I gagged.

My stomach churned.

I grabbed two towels and dashed out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind me.

My dripping, naked body was greeted by the intense laughter of my three hotelmates. Pleas of innocence fell soundless on my ears. There was simply no way that The Farter would even attempt that stunt without the encouragement of my other two “friends”.

After toweling off and dressing in the hallway, I walked over to look at my 3 ex-friends.

“Well. That was horrible.” I deadpanned. “And I hate you.”

“But it could have been worse. He could have poked his ass past the shower curtains and deuced in the tub.”

I never thought I’d be one of ‘those’ pet people. You know, the kind that talks about their pets like they are children of the family, the kind that carries around pictures of their pets, the kind that sinks into a frenzied depression if their pets get lost.

But last weekend, I realized I might have crossed over.

I had gotten Cody tickets to see Dave Matthews Band for his birthday, so last Friday we headed up to Verizon Wireless Music Center an hour north of our home. He picked me up at my office, and we stopped to grab dinner on the way. The concert started at 7 and we were eating at about 6:15 when our roommate called (our friend Allie has been renting out our guest room for the summer).

“Have you guys been back after work or did you go straight up to the concert?” she asked.

“We left from work,” I said. We chatted a bit, and she asked me again if I was sure I had not been back to the house after work.

This is not a good sign, I thought. I would have known if I’d come home first. So I asked her why she needed to know.

“Well, I let Hershey out, then I laid down for a nap, and when I got up he wasn’t in the backyard.” Hershey is a lab mix we rescued last November from Love of Labs. He was a mangy little thing when we got him, but now he is a sweet, mostly well-behaved and handsome dog.

I wasn’t exactly surprised he had gotten out, since he is an escape artist. Every time we fix our fence in one place, he finds another way to get out. I wasn’t too worried. I told Allie to check down at the corner house because his little friend Brandy, a chocolate lab, lives there and he likes to visit her.

Allie was more than happy to go scouting for him, so I told her to keep me posted.

A half an hour later, she still hadn’t found him. I began to get worried. He was never gone this long and he didn’t have his collar on (he’s a little thick for it these days). I called our other neighbor Cortney to see if she could help Allie look. Though she was shopping down the road, she was quick to drop everything to help so we wouldn’t have to miss the concert. I thanked her, pushing back ugly thoughts of Hershey getting stolen by bratty neighborhood kids or lying on the side of the road.

A little after 7, Cody and I pulled into Verizon’s expansive parking lot. Cortney and Allie still hadn’t had any luck, and by this time I was surprised to find I was in tears.

Our sweet dog was lost.

What if he was scared? Picked up by creepy strangers? Or worse, hit by a car? I felt torn; I wanted to make the hour drive back home and look for him while it was light but felt awful at the thought of Cody missing his birthday concert.

“Babe, let’s go back,” Cody said, squeezing my knee and backing out of our parking space. “It’s only 7. Dave won’t come on til almost 9. Besides, they’ll probably find him before we even get there. Don’t be upset we might miss the concert. It’s like having a kid; we’d go back if our kids got sick so we gotta go back and find our dog.”

Relieved, I nodded and sat back for the long drive home.

Ten minutes later, Allie called. “I think we found him!!” she cried. I heard lots of shuffling and moving on the phone. “Cortney just called me. A family took him in and fed him and was going to go look for his owner. I’m running to meet her now,” she said, gasping for air. “If it’s him, I’m grounding him for the night.” I giggled through my tears. I waited.

“Yup, it’s him!” Allie said triumphantly.

“They found him!!” I cried to Cody. I was so relieved. I thanked Allie and Cortney profusely on the phone for stopping their lives for an hour to look for our puppy.

As Cody and I turned around and drove back to the concert, we talked about how much of a mess we’d be if something ever happened to Hershey. That’s when I realized he was part of our family. He sleeps in our room when it thunders, he runs with me and keeps me safe, and he’s always up for a walk or a trip to the park or just a ride in the truck. He sits at our feet when we have a fire pit going, he welcomes us happily in the morning and when we come home from work, and he’s sweet and polite to kids.

I never thought I’d be someone who was crazy about my dog. But I confess. I am. He’s our baby… for now.

Silken whispers invade my privacy.
Deep stanzas hum with agendas.
Tracing afterthoughts and outlines.
Our fingers dance and forget the time.

Down in the valley echoes are softened
and absorbed by the fall.
Everything flutters and takes on a life.
The air is hot and sticky with life.

It passes between without hesitation.
The bellows, the memories, taught
like catgut and bristling with inertia.
Even at peace, my thoughts are burdens.

Warm lies tread tirelessly without pause.
They nestle and build ramparts to
which I cannot go beyond.
Looming and violating the sky with obsidian pricks.

Behind us is the place we began life together.
No embargo to strain and tear down.
I’ve found something worth remembering.
I’ve loved you for so long.

Sometimes I like to play a little game with the gas gauge in my car, just to see how far I can go with the fuel light on. I have been well below the “E”, and I’ve become so good at this game that I really don’t even get nervous about it any more. Some might say it’s not the smartest thing to play “chicken” with your gas gauge, but I have never lost…at least while driving my car.

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of spending a week in southern Kentucky with about 60 middle and high school kids from the church that I have been attending. I also had the privilege of driving the big yellow school bus that we rented all the way from Columbia, MO to Kentucky Lake, and driving the kids to and from the lake each day that week. I actually enjoy driving a bus, plus I got to go the lake every day for a week. Who can complain about that?

I watched the fuel gauge steadily descend as we made the seven-hour journey on Sunday of that week. We made our final bathroom stop about an hour away from our destination, and we still had a quarter of a tank left. Knowing that we would definitely make it to the campground, I thought it might be a good idea to go ahead and fill ‘er up so we wouldn’t have to worry about it for the rest of the week. Now was not the time to be playing games with the gas gauge. But the youth director told me we didn’t have time to get gas, and we needed to get back on the road. No big deal, I thought, and I jumped back in the driver’s seat and rolled on down the highway.

Unfortunately, that was the last time I thought about the fuel gauge until it was too late.

On Wednesday afternoon, we loaded up the bus and headed to the lake. It was a little harder to start that day, but I didn’t think anything of it. About half-way to our destination (it was about a ten-mile drive from our campground) I looked at the gas gauge right as we drove past the last gas station we would see. No worries, though; I’ve played this game before. I thought I could make it to the lake, drop the kids off, and then go and fill the bus up. No problem, right?

Wrong.

About a mile down the road, the bus began to sputter and then died as we rolled to a stop on a bridge. Luckily, there was a huge shoulder, but it was still a very busy highway. The agonizing thing was that our drop-off location was not even a mile away. In fact, I could see it from where we were stranded on the bridge. So close, yet so far away.

I got out the orange plastic triangles to place behind the bus to warn oncoming vehicles of our gas-less bus (as if you can’t see a huge, yellow bus sitting on the side of the road). As I’m placing the last triangle, a big white pick-up truck pulls up behind the bus. There are two men in the truck, and the driver seriously looks like he could be Hulk Hogan’s long lost brother. Complete with foomanchu and a deep, growling voice, he rolled down the window and asked, “You broke down, brother?”

I explained the situation to him, feeling like a complete idiot the whole time. And although he may have been thinking that in his head (seriously, who runs out of gas in a bus?), he was the kindest person I had met in a long time. He owned a boat shop not too far from where we were stranded, and he offered to go and get us some fuel. I thanked him profusely, and off he went.

I returned to the bus to share the good news with the increasingly restless batch of teenagers that thought they were going to the lake. I tried to turn it into a teachable moment by telling them that I made a poor choice in thinking that I could make it, even as we drove past a gas station with the needle fully resting on “E”. They weren’t too interested in learning life lessons at that moment in time, however.

Before too long, the big white pick-up truck pulls up behind the bus again. The two men get out, and Hulk Hogan’s brother is easily as big as the Hulkster himself. He introduces himself as “Big Earl”, and the other man’s name is Andy. They put the ten gallons of diesel fuel in the tank, and tell me to crank the engine. Unfortunately, all of the fuel lines had been bled completely dry, and it still wasn’t starting.

Without a word or a single negative comment, Earl and Andy go to work trying to get the bus started. Earl even offered to let me drive his truck to start shuttling the kids to the lake while he and Andy worked. I only needed to make one trip. The bus was cranked and running as I pulled up, and I thanked Earl and Andy again for their generosity. He refused the money I offered him (he did let us pay him back for the gas, though), but said that he was just concerned with the kids’ safety. His final words to me were, “You better get to a gas station, brother.” I chuckled and said I would as I thanked him yet again, and then he and Andy drove off.

I don’t think there is any way to express my gratitude to Big Earl. He didn’t have to stop that day; many others didn’t. He chose to help a group of complete strangers with a kindness and generosity rarely seen. He helped brighten up a situation that was not very fun. I will probably forget a lot of things about that week, but I will never forget Big Earl. I will always remember his kindheartedness, and his foomanchu. And I will never again forget to check the gas gauge, brother.