As they followed the highway deeper into the mountains, the scenery became awe inspiring. Near a little town called Alpine, it was beautiful in a jaw-dropping way. Tall narrow evergreen trees constituted a forest that majestically circled lush meadows and marched half way up mountains. Peaks stood clothed to the neck with green and topped with gray and blue shadowed features. Most had white patches of snow on them.
They were so absorbed in the beauty that they didn't realize they were high in the mountains until they rounded a sharp corner.
Carmen gasped and stepped on the brakes, bringing the van to a stop in the middle of the highway. "Oh my gosh!"
In front of them lay range after range of mountains. It was wild, beautiful and frightening. The highway had a narrow shoulder, but after that it dropped off to a deep canyon. Beside the road where she had stopped, there was a widening of the shoulder. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen a car, and there were none in sight now.
Alex spoke gently beside her. "You'd better pull over here and let me drive."
Carmen didn't need to be told twice. She pulled the van over in the wide place beside the road and unbuckled her seat belt. She climbed out of the van and walked around the back of the van. The mountain scene ahead of them was giving her vertigo.
From that overlook on, they were in a constant assent or decent and rounding sharp curves on a narrow highway. Alex had been correct about filling up the gas tank at every opportunity. Their average speed couldn't have been more than twenty miles per hour. There were no towns. It was raw wilderness except for the highway. They drove for hours, unsure how far it would be before they came to civilization.
Alex was quiet. Probably upset with her for not listening to him. She couldn't blame him. Still, it was a scenic route. She finally reached the point that she could look without feeling sick to her stomach.
After a while she began to think about what would happen if the van broke down. Would their cell phones work? She didn't want to check hers because Alex would know what she was doing and why. Her anxiety would be transferred to him…or was it the other way around?
They found a place to pull over and eat their lunch in the van. When an old pickup truck came by from the other direction, Alex got the van back on the road again. For Carmen, it was a comfort to know other humans were nearby. To Alex it was a possibility to get robbed. Why was he always so negative?