Independence Day 2005: Alex's Three-Wheeler Adventure

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When I went camping in New York at our annual 4th of July family reunion, my sisters passed on some parental guidelines for camping, one being that when their children were my childrens’ ages their kids had to ask permission to explore the campground by themselves, and in most cases could only venture out of sight accompanied by an adult. I was glad for the guidelines they offered because my passion for exploring and thrill-seeking constantly blurred my ability to see and set sensible boundaries. shoe shop hiking Omega motherhood New York State Parks and Recreation

Within the first hour after the ten-hour drive from Ohio to the campsite in the Catskill mountains, Alex, my nine-year old, had set off on his three-wheeler. At first he was just flying wildly down the slope that connected our familys’ four campsites. Next thing I knew, maybe an hour later, one of my sisters asked me where Alex was. Suddenly it hit me that I hadn’t kept better track of the background noise of his three-wheeler while I was setting up my tent and birthing the entire contents of my impregnated minivan. Another sister shouted out “I last heard him saying he was going to the lake.” I didn’t know he knew the way to the lake. Maybe someone told him where it was or someone would chime in with a clue as to whom he had gone there with. All that was offered was “He said he was going to take all the roads that went downhill because he had trouble riding his three-wheeler up the hills.”

I didn’t think that sounded good. I hastily uploaded and scanned the soundtrack of the last hour including noises I’d been filtering out so I could focus on the task of setting up camp, and I couldn’t remember when it was that I last heard or tried not to hear the noisy three wheeler. I comandeered my sister Janet to drive me around in her minivan because mine was blocked by my brother-in-law’s truck. Janet and I headed in the direction of the lake with a bit of panic in my heart that increased with each passing downhill path that lead to no Alex in tears at the bottom of it. I imagined him winding his way through the unfamiliar campground. Knowing how easily frustrated he gets, I was thinking of combinations of conditions that could drive him to tears, such as not knowing his way combined with the aggravation of spinning treadless plastic wheels up a gravel road. As I looked down each passing lane seeing no Alex in tears at the bottom spinning his wheels I was both relieved and worried until finally we came upon a state park employee.

Interestingly, the instinctive deduction that the downhill roads must lead to the lake, took Alex in the right direction. The park employee who radioed over to the lifeguard to see if she saw a blonde boy in a tie dye t-shirt with a peace sign on the back gave us the thumbs up.

A huge sigh of relief came over us as well as a wave of curiosity. How did he get there?? We pulled into the crowded beach parking lot and the first thing we saw was Alex’s three wheeler parked in a parking space at an angle with his helmet carefully placed in the bucket seat. I broke out laughing so hard, in such relief that he was okay but also at how cleverly he had left his bike.

When I found him on the beach I asked him why he did that? He said “Well, I thought about it. If I left it on the grass soemone would steal it. But if I parked it in the parking lot," he said touching the tip of his index fingers to his thumbs and sweeping his hands out to the sides as if smoothing out the wrinkles on a bedspread, "they would respect it.” Yes indeed it got a lot of respect. Everyone who saw it commented on it. No one laughed. No one tried to take it. They just looked at it with interest. The trust Alex had placed in mankind on that day was admired by everyone who walked by his bike or drove by it looking for a place to park.