Four Wheelin'

Usually when I hear the words "Four wheeling" I think people have been out having a lot of fun.

Dh and I worked together today, and had quite an adventure. We were 88 miles away from home, working on a property that is to be put up for sale in a couple of weeks. We had planned to have an "easy" day (no adventures on the agendy whatsoever) and I was to clean the inside, which was relatively clean, just dusty and needed a bit of attention.

Dh also looked up and found an air conditioning serviceman in the area and he was able to come out to get the a/c charged and working.

Things were going pretty, and ds2 called to tell us that he'd heard on K-LOVE radio station that the area we were in was going to get hit with some pretty good thunderstorms.

The a/c guys arrived and started working on the a/c unit. Shortly after that it began sprinkling. The sprinkling turned into hard blowing wind and pelting raindrops. Especially where the men were working. They finished to the point where they could go no further because it was raining too hard.

Dh had me write them a check and they would come back next week to finish charging up the system with freon.

But that didn't happen.

Instead, their back tires got stuck in the mucky mud.

We have four wheel drive on our Pathfinder, and we've driven through thick mushy mud pulling our water tank full of water, so we figured it would be simple. I got into my truck, we were also pulling our trailer, loaded with the front deck... made it out of the spot I was in, went around the house to higher ground and moved into position in the front of the van.

Not so simple. We ended up getting stuck ourselves! The pictures do no justice to the actual situation we were in. We were sunk in sloshy mud, and trying to get out only got us deeper into the muck and mire.

Thank God, there were things around that came in handy. There were otherwise useless bags of hardened cement (that's what happens when you leave bags of cement out in the elements without a cover, and it rains. The water soaks through the bag and into the cement, hardening it into a bag-shaped hard thing.

The old deck, which SIL was hoping to save for another place, came in handy. We used several pieces of the board to put under the tires. Thank God, ds2 wanted to invest in a $60 truck jack, a huge honking device that has come in handy more than once (and not only for jacking up the vehicle it was purchased for!).

For over an hour, we shoveled mud and water around, placed boards, jacked up my vehicle, and then the jack lost its balance and the truck fell over, thank God no one was in the way. Actually, dh WAS, but he leaped out of the way at the right instant. One of the guys said he was QUICK, he must have played ball in school.

The three men pushed me, while I gave the truck gas, let off, gave the truck gas, let off. We were attempting to ROCK the vehicle out of the holes it was sunken into. I couldn't get the rhythm at first, they were pushing while I was letting off, but finally we all got the same beat and managed to rock the vehicle into a position where I could finally climb out of the mud.

I drove in the mushy mud, and backed near the van from a different area, which was less muddy. We worked for another hour, and finally they were also freed!!

They decided since it had now stopped raining, they would go ahead and charge the unit with freon so they didn't have to come back next week.

Finally they were on their way again... the guy started heading out onto the driveway, the muddy, slushy, quicksandishly driveway and GOT STUCK AGAIN!! He didn't get overly stuck this time. I made my way over to him, staying on the uncleared less mushy area. This is what I had to drive through -- lots of desert shrubbery. If you straddle the plant as you drive over, it works out okay. But if you drive right over the plant's center, you can blow a tire! So I had some fancy manuveuring to do, as you can see!

We hooked up the chain, and I pull the guy out. This time it was as simple as we thought it would be. I had planned to pull him all the way out to the road, but after a few feet he wanted to try by himself. He managed to get out to the street.

And now I'm exhausted. No time left for proofing.

Until next time.