Lost But Now Am Found
Justin’s view on the way to the top of the dunes. The kids and I are down by the treeline.
While Justin was up hiking the dunes, I watched the kiddos playing in the stream.
My phone was almost dead and I kept checking it to see if Justin had sent an update before it finally died.
That’s when I saw this:
“Soooo I dropped my phone in the dunes somewhere. Can you pull it up on find my friends? Call it from time to time to see if someone picked it up?”
Oh nooooo…
So I called. Then I called again a few minutes later. Then again. And again.
Nothing.
Find my Friends? “Location turned off”. Useless.
Crud.
According to my kids, this was “catastrophic!”
After calming them down and reassuring them that this was far from catastrophic, I explained…
Inconvenient? Yes.
A huge bummer? Uh-huh.
Catastrophic? No
But we all know it was going to be okay, however it turned out. It’s a phone, doubling as his wallet this day. He’ll find it and if he doesn’t, well, we’ll just deal with it as we can. Right?
But his pictures…aww. So many good ones. Can they transfer over to a new phone?
It reminded me of him losing his camera the last week of his cycling trip across the US. So many good pictures gone and he still talks about that camera all these years later.
Given the time, I figured he’d be making his was across the stretch of sand in front of us soon. The kids kept playing and I scanned the horizon looking for his blue shirt, a board, and his gait.
Is that him?
I think so!
I jumped up, told the kids to stay put, and ran across the sand to out where he was.
I was so relieved to lay eyes on him. He’d been gone a long time and I just wanted to know if he was okay
Poor guy looked like he’d been punched in the gut.
The hike as planned was already a hard one, and he’d just done in twice.
He boarded down the last dune, went to check his phone, and it was gone. Just gone.
Talk about a needle in the haystack!
He tried to retrace his steps, but the sand is always shifting, other people are walking where you’ve walked, and the wind…it’s gone.
But Justin prayed. He didn’t give up. He came down the dune to get my phone and was planning to go back up with my dying phone to find his.
Defeated, and with my phone dying, he tried calling his phone one more time…
And someone answered!
Ethan answered the phone!!!
He was looking for his daughter’s phone and saw a stick in the sand. He grabbed the stick and dug around for a second and ended up finding a phone, just not the one he was looking for
Justin ran out to the dunes with Aubyn in tow and met the man who had found it.
Aubyn was able to get more sand boarding in and then we called it a day.
It had been a long one.
Justin was physically and emotionally drained.
There is no telling why God had favor on him with his phone, but we gave thanks right then and there.
We showered again in the parking lot of the park and then got on the road heading home.
Hey, if that’s the worst that has happened this trip, we’ll take it. It was a little blip, a tiny scare, but considering all that we’ve done and seen, it’s nothing. And besides, it all worked out.
Now onto who knows where. Our next for sure stop is Tulsa, but are we going to stop on the way or try to make it in one long push?
I’ll find out when we get there!
