This weekend was rather, well …. exciting, to say the least. It started off like any weekend in which I go camping. Get my items, pack up Dolly, then head out as soon as I can. Friday I was at a friends helping place hardwood floors, and immediately after I made a quick escape to the mountains. This time was a wee bit different. I’d been planning it for the past week or so, I bought some extra gear to try out. Mainly a new sleeping bag and also my new Hennessey Hammock Tent. It’s a hammock/tent which is probably a campers best friend. After my first field test(aka after I camped in it for a night), I give it 2 thumbs up. That morning, after an awesome night’s sleep I decided to go through the trails and have a little fun wheeling. Afterwards I headed out to get to the highest point on the mountain side, so I can test out signal strength and such for my new CB radio I am going to install when the rest of my items come in ….
Karma. Driver error. Bad luck. Wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe a mixture of it all. I’ve still yet to determine exactly what to call it, but it happened. Somewhat of a freak accident. I was driving on a regular trail, much like the trails I drove on previously with my previous car hundreds of times before. Nothing out of the ordinary. On this trail, it’s a tight squeeze, but enough room for two cars to pass. This time it was a white toyota tundra. As we passed each other, only going about 5 mph I was on the outside, he was on the inside. As I passed, I began to turn into the road to re-center myself is when it happened. The whole shelf gave out leaving me and Dolly on 3 wheels. Nose diving into a 5-6 foot drop. Immediately the driver of the white toyota got out, attached a 40K lb tow strap to me and tried to give me a good tug out.
No go.
It was an intense five seconds. When replayed in my mind, it seems like it lasted for hours …. days even. After a few moments of trying to correct the situation, and only making it infinitely worse, I decided to get out of Dolly. At a 45 degree angle, the only way to get out was to unstrap my seatbelt, use my feet pushed on the passenger side door and heave the door open, and then crawl out. I don’t think drivers ed, or any OHV course really mentally prepares you for getting out of a near flipped vehicle.
When I got out of the vehicle, I realized the severity of the situation. The only thing keeping Dolly in place and not rolling down this ditch, was the tow strap, and her front driver side tire anchored into the ground.
I’ll spare you the rest, however I will say that after 2 hours, 3 winches and some ingenuity, me and Dolly got out unscathed. No dents, no scratches, nothing. Heck, not even her alignment was off. It’s like nothing ever happened. All is well in the universe. How? I have no idea, but somebody was watching out for us. And also, thanks to a bunch of generous folks and lots of patience. After it was all said and done, everybody gathered around for photo opportunities. Of course, as people drove away I got the “Hey, watch out for that ditch!”, or …. “Stay on the road next time!”, all in good fun.
One gentleman noticed in my windshield my bible. Looking at the book, then at me he chuckled and said, “Well, if you were on the fence before all this ruckus, I suppose now is as good a time as any to start believing, because he sure was looking out for you and your truck….”. We chuckled and talked abit afterwards. There were a few of us and a couple had mentioned that, although they didn’t wish it upon anybody, that it was nice to see others in weird accidents so they knew it wasn’t just them. I got the “It happens to the best of us!” rhetoric, and of course, I thought they were just being nice. However, one of the wives of the gentlemen that helped, her husband was in an offroading magazine for the same thing, very near the same spot. We looked at the accident site, and sure enough, you could see where a few others weren’t so lucky. Impressions of tires and such, all going down in the ditch ….
I was very lucky. Very.
Am I crazy? No … it just seems that this year I’ve been very accident prone.
It could have been much worse than it was. At one point, when the only thing holding Dolly in was a tow strap I was thinking in advance when she did roll over. Well, I’m out a thousand bucks, and my insurance would go up. I suppose it could be much worse. Then I got to thinking about all the good memories I had with her, how short a time I had with her, Then it was like, *gulp*, man. Of course, like a child, I kept thinking in my head … “Please god, I won’t ask for anything else, EVER!”. Yea right …. I’m sure he just chuckled and said “Whatever dude.” I felt like I was saying my last goodbyes. Thats a pretty sobering and surreal moment.
You know, I debated even writing this, Sharing this, documenting this ….. With everybody that reads my blog thats close to me, family and friends alike. Alot of them tell me all the time, “It’s not safe …”, or “that’s stupid …”, or this or that …. I haven’t told too many folks for that very reason. I don’t need the “I told you so speech”, I don’t need the guilt trip of not doing what it is I like to do. I don’t need people telling me how I need to be careful with such a big purchase. Then I got to thinking, it was on a passenger road(albeit a dirt and bumpy road), in the middle of nowhere that could have happened to anybody at any time. Like I said before, Karma. Driver error. Bad luck. Wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe a mixture of it all. It was just an accident. However, now that it’s all said and done, nobody was injured or harmed, and everything is back to normal I wanted to share. Not only because it’s part of my life, my lessons learned, but because I figure this will be one heck of a story to tell my grandkids, one heck of a story to share around the many more campfires to come.
Also probably because I refuse to live my life in the solitary confinement of my apartment. I refuse to die without experiencing some sort of adventure in my life. I refuse. I won’t be tied up in a box, I won’t be shackled and chained for the sake of safety. I won’t be. Having said that, accidents will happen. We can only hope to escape by the hair on our chiney chin chin. In hindsight could I have done some things differently? Perhaps, but again, it was an accident, and in hindsight, I’ve learned a few valuable lessons. Its hindsight though. One of the books I bought to read while I was in the mountains this weekend was by Bear Grylls, the Man vs Wild dude, and inside there was this quote:
“It’s a glorious perversity deep in their souls. And it’s not wisdom that inspires people to risk everything in pursuit of a seemingly hopeless love affair. It’s an uncontrollable passion, and the existential urge to taste danger before you die.”
It was only an accident, but with an adrenaline rush of having your car almost flip over, I’d consider it some danger 
That night, after the shakes were removed from my bones, I went to church like I normally do on Saturday evenings. I had to pay my respects to the man upstairs.
However, I was in for a real treat when I got home. 4 blocks away from my home there were fireworks. Awesome fireworks to boot. It ended up being a great weekend after it was all said and done. Even though the times are tough in the states, there really is no better place to live than the good ole US of A. The people, the dynamics, everything. It’s just awesome. The world is pretty damn awesome too. I love the whole world, and all it’s crazyness.
Happy Birthday America.
BOOMDEYADA!
firewings August 4, 2008
Wow, judging from that picture you were pretty damn lucky. I’m glad Dolly got out of that safe.
And, heh, you too.