As teenages, we all feel that we can do anything and in some sense of the word, have no fear.   The act of stopping and trying to understand all the consequences of a choice does not necessarily happen, only that it would be a lot of fun.   The following story is about a decision that I made as a 15 year old that taught me how little I knew at that time in my life.

A few years prior to my 15th birthday, my parents had purchase a 3/4 ton Chevy pickup and camper that we used for a number of years.  Here is a picture of the back side of our camper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now, let’s move forward few years and I am now 15, with a recently acquired driver’s license.  Summer break and bored one Saturday morning.  Our parents had left and we were home alone.  Doug and I decided it would be a good idea to go fishing up in the hills just east of our home in Iona.  We didn’t stop to consider that the recent rainstorm may have muddied the dirt roads a bit, which would have made this a bad idea.  Normally, we would remove the camper when taking the pickup up in the hills, but we didn’t want to take the time to do this and left the camper in place.  We all loaded into the cab and were off on our daily adventure.

We headed east up the Iona road.  The drive was easy because the road was blacktop.  Eventually the blacktop ended and we were on dirt.  We noticed that there was some mud from the recent rainstorm, but the dirt roads were mostly dry and the going was easy.  The higher into the hills we drove, the more mud we saw and it was starting to have an impact on the roads.  Without the camper on the truck, it would not have been such an issue, but with the weight of the camper the pickup was slipping and sliding in the mud.  But we were not going to let this deter us from our daily adventure.  So, rather than turning around and going back home, we decided to continue on to the Swan Valley bridge.

I could spin the story such that we did some slipping and sliding, but the trip was uneventful.  The slipping and sliding would be a true statement, but uneventful would be a misstatement.

The piece that I left out of the initial statement was that as we were slipping and sliding we came to a part of the road that looked to be a mud hole.  We thought if we hit it fast and hard, we would make it through.   But no such luck.  The front wheels made it, but when the back wheels hit, and with the weight of the camper, they sank to the frame of the pickup and the rear wheels started spinning.  We stopped, climbed out and walked around the truck and our first thought was, “There is no way we are going to get out of this!”

As we left that morning, we did leave a note telling our parents that we had gone fishing.  We didn’t want them to wonder or worry about us.  Now with the rear wheels of the pickup sunk to the frame, my first thought was, “Dad is going to kill me!”

Doug and I tried to push as Ann drove the truck, nothing, the back wheels just spun.  We all said a few prayers and I believe Debbie did some crying.  We tried other options and said more prayers.  After further assessing our situation, Doug and I gather some wood and put that in front of the rear tires.  We then grabbed a couple of larger logs to use as pry bars.  We put Ann behind the steering wheel and Doug and I put the logs under the bumper to use as pry bars.  Ann gave it gas and we pushed with all we had.  The tires caught the wood and with our pushing, this time the truck popped out of the hole to all of our amazement.

At this point we couldn’t turn around and go home, so we continued on to Swan Valley hoping that we did not find any more mud holes.  We made the bridge and came back on the paved highway through Ririe.  When we arrived home Mom and Dad were gone and so we thought, great, clean up the truck and camper and all would be good.   So we quickly got the hose out and washed the pickup and camper, making it look just as good as it looked before our trip.

Unbeknownst to us, our parents had come home while we were navigating through the hills and read our note.  Dad’s first thought was how crazy his kids were to even try this.  There was no way the pickup and camper will make it through the hills, given the recent rain.  So, he and Mom got in the car and headed up after us, figuring they would find us stuck somewhere along the way.  They did find the mud hole and knew exactly what had happened and were somewhat amazed that we had got out of the hole.

Lessons learned:

• I was not as smart as I thought I was at 15 years old
• That a few tears and even more prayers come in handy when you find yourself in an almost impossible situation
• The adventure of driving the hills (dirt roads) with a pickup and camper after a rainstorm, is not a good idea
• The fear of parental consequences can spur kids to do amazing things