“Everyone in!” I heard my dad yell. I shut my door in unison with my sister’s. I was so excited about the road trip we were heading on. We had never done something like this before. As we drove out of our driveway, I turned back to see the midday summer sun hitting the side of our lavender colored house perfectly. I turned back and got comfy in my seat, it was going to be quite a drive. 

The first night, we stayed in a hotel. Then the next day we went to the sand dunes to rent atvs for an hour or so. When we got there, we were all super excited to go. We had to watch a video about where we were, and weren’t allowed to go. Then, we got on our helmets and each got on an atv. We had to drive a little ways through some trees before we actually got out onto the sand. When we were driving our atvs through the forest, I was practicing my going and stopping. I felt pretty good about it and just then, we were on the sand. The guide gave us some tips about driving, and then he went back to the office building. We had our helmets and goggles on, we were ready to go. I remember looking out and seeing the sun reflect off of the sand, almost blinding. We could see the ocean as well in the distance. We started driving our atv’s around. My dad was in front of me so I tried to catch up to him. I started racing him up a pretty big hill. Little did I know, this was not just a hill.

I finally got ahead of my dad about half way up the hill. I got to the top of the “hill” and realized it wasn’t just a hill, it was a razorback. I was going so fast and didn’t see what it was early enough and I FLEW over the razorback. I remember I watched my entire life flash before my eyes. I never knew what people meant when they said that, until it happened to me. Honestly I wasn’t scared, it was kind of peaceful in a way. I fell forward over the balck handlebars and face planted directly into the warm sand. My atv rolled over the top of me but it didn’t really hurt… it just felt like a lot of pressure. I sat up, my vision blurred from tears. I wasn’t sure why I was crying, I hadn’t been hurt that badly. I assumed it was just from the shock. After the second I sat up I started calling for my dad in tears. All of this felt like a bad dream, I couldn’t describe how, but it just didn’t feel real. My dad must’ve stopped at the top of the razorback because he had seen it before I had, but he came rushing down to me and held me. My left leg was the only thing seriously injured. It felt like knives stabbing me in one spot. I felt my leg, there was an indent on the spot that was hurting. Other than my leg, nothing else was seriously hurt. I just had a couple scratches here and there. My mom came rushing down as well to take my helmet and goggles off. We called the front desk people and they sent us a vehicle that we could drive back up in. My dad and sister stayed and drove around on their atvs but my mom came back with me to get some band-aids and things like that. Once my dad and sister came back, we got in the car and decided to go to the er. There was a big dent on the outside of my left leg and I couldn't walk. We drove to the er and when I got out of the car the people brought me a wheelchair to get pushed in. They wheeled me in and into a room. 

“What happened?” The nurse lady asked me. 

I kind of giggled and replied with, “Well you see, funny story…” I told her what had happened and she made me put a big bulgy white neck brace on because I told her I face planted and she wanted to make sure my neck wasn’t hurt. The doctor came in and checked my neck, it wasn’t hurt. 

He took the neck brace off and said, “Okay we’re going to take you back and do some X-Rays.” I nodded and they wheeled my bed into the X-Ray room. They laid me on a big bed and took the X-Rays. When they finished, they took me back into my room. My family was in there and we talked as we waited for the results.

“Well,” I said, “I’ll get to tell a pretty cool story someday, huh?” My family laughed. I wasn’t worried that I was going to have a broken leg. I was, however, really worried about having to make my family miss the whole rest of the trip. The next place we were going was a treehouse place where you sleep in a treehouse way up high. I wouldn’t be able to climb stairs if i had crutches...and I didn’t want to make my family miss out on the fun trip. Finally, The doctor came back to give me my results.

The doctor came in, wearing blue scrubs. 

“Good news!” He said, “It’s not broken.” We all cheered. I was so happy! I still couldn’t walk very well, but at least it wasn’t broken.

After this experience, first of all, I realized that maybe God does even care about the little things in life. LIke, if we missed the rest of that trip, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world, but he still let us enjoy it. And I also learned that maybe when trying something new, I should be a little bit more cautious about what I’m doing.