Two charter busses miss the turn off Four Mile Rd to Sonlight Place
circa early 1990’s
It was Christmas break and Brian Land brought his youth group from Katy, TX with two busses full of high school kids to Sonlight for a ski trip. After a good day of skiing, the busses were headed back to camp and coming up Four Mile Road from town. The first bus missed the turn off to Sonlight Place and camp and simply kept on going up the county road. The second bus, as was bus company policy, stayed with the first bus and it also kept going up the county road. In the winter months, the county road is only plowed about two miles past Sonlight Place. It is a narrow snow packed road with nowhere for a large charter bus to turn around. Somehow, word got back to us at Sonlight that these two charter busses were at the end of the county road with no way to turn around. (Maybe a vehicle came by the busses and brought the youth leader to Sonlight for help?) I took the camp truck along with the youth leader up to the busses to see how we could get them turned around and back to camp for dinner. There was absolutely no way to turn these busses around on that narrow snow plowed road. The snow banks were 4 feet high. So, I turned the camp truck around with a bunch of K turns. Now, I was facing south on the road and the busses were facing north. The truck’s headlights ( as it was now quite dark outside) became the busses “back up lights”. Now, all three of us began the very slow journey getting back to Sonlight Place, two miles away. The truck was moving ever so slowly in first gear. The busses were backing up and following the headlights of the truck. No mistakes and no getting off the road and stuck in the snow. After what seemed like forever, we finally made it back to the junction where the busses turned left and came on into camp. This event added about 3 hours to the kids ski day. Needless to say, everyone was hungry and Mary’s dinner was awesome.
Just another day of “making memories”.