Jeep 4-wheeling mishaps and the photobook I'm going to make of it :)

[Ellen]

I have to tell you about my hilarious days adventure I had yesterday. It all started with wanting to go on a hike in a "new" area. After doing some searching online, I called my friend Kevin and asked him to meet me at exit 45 so we could drive the 3 mile dirt road leading to Ira Springs Trail in his Jeep. The trip started out uneventful until we reached a caution sign in the middle of the road and a washed out area from flooding. Now, if we were like other cautious travelers, we would have pulled over and walked the final mile to the trailhead... but the sign didn't say ROAD CLOSED or DO NOT PASS. It said CAUTION...so, we decided to drive around it and keep going. We carefully drove around another washed out area, through a river flowing over the road and through a hairy boulder field. We could see our destination about 50 feet away when we were stopped by trees on the road. Now...we could have walked the rest of the way, but we'd come this far and HAD to be the only car who made it to the parking lot so Kevin plowed over one tree and almost made it over the second before getting stuck on it.

[caption id="attachment_26" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Jeep stuck"][/caption]

So we pondered options...no saw or ax so we started walking the 3 miles back to my car, passing LOTS of hikers along the way who were quite surprised that someone would have attempted to drive up and not heed the CAUTION sign. It was a pretty walk and we WERE technically hiking...just not on the trail we had planned. So after "hiking" back to my car, driving 15 miles to my house to get the saw, driving back to the caution sign and PARKING THERE, we walked the final mile and cleared the trees for the National Park Service. VICTORY right? Well, sort of...we arrived in the parking lot (the only car there, um... yeah) and really didn't feel like tackling the 6 mile hike, I mean, we know how to get there now, right? So we turned the jeep around and headed
back down the dirt road and only got stuck 1 more time (nice hikers pushed us out that time) AND I got it on video...hee, hee.
So now off to Costco.com to make a photobook for Kevin of our days adventures so to document what he called the "dumbassticity." :)

[Ellen]

I'm sure we did! :)

[Ashley Housing]

LOL!! I bet you guys gave those helpful hikers quite the story to tell all their friends and family! :o)