Got a call from my mom this afternoon. She had taken the car in to have the transmission looked at during lunch and Dorian had brought her back to the school. The car place called saying there were a few other things wrong, there always is, and she decided to leave it there for them to work on instead of taking it in later when it was an emergency.
This left me as the rescuer. With all the cars gone the only thing left to drive on the property was my dad's work truck. Thank goodness it was an automatic. Not so thank goodness that it was parked in the yard that was now soggy with rain water. I got a sippy-cup and graham crackers ready for our mission and took her out to the truck in her jammies. It was only going to be a quick drive to the school and back. The school is 25 minutes away, but, like I said, quick.
We were all ready to go, country back-road style. Alaska strapped in the back seat like a big girl since the car-seat was in car that Handsome Husband had taken to work. With her jammies on. No need to waste clean 'town clothes' for a day at home, ya know. (Since we've moved to Oregon we're still working on her inventory of 'home clothes').
The truck started first try, which was a little bit of a miracle since the battery is said to be close to closing its life, and we were on our way.
Except that we weren't. To avoid hitting the woodpile (remember, we're doing this country back-road style, so of course there's going to be a woodpile) I turned the truck a little too sharply and one back tire got stuck in the mud hole that was left from tearing a stump out. After spinning out a few times I hopped out to see what was going on. Only I couldn't get the door open. The handle from the inside is completely useless and I had to scoot my way across the bench seat to the other side.
I did this 3x before finding a couple of pieces of wood to shove under the tire, which at this point was pretty deep in the ground. Looking around some more I found some shingle pieces and a shovel and began to shovel away the mud and poke the shingles as far under the tire as I could. When this didn't work either I did the whole 'forward, reverse, forward, reverse' motion and made a little headway. By this time I was using the shovel to break up the ground and then my hands to pull away the dirt. My city nails weren't above digging a truck out.
All-in-all I called my mom to tell her we weren't going to be able to come get her. She suggested putting the truck in 4-wheel drive and getting out. Of course. Except that I didn't know how to put the truck in 4-wheel drive. Called my dad and didn't get an answer. Set out on my adventure again and decided to just do what I could. And it popped right out. Although I like to think that my digging and shingles made that possible.
Alaska sat in her seat-belt the whole time and didn't even try to squirm out. I stopped at every stop sign, but otherwise followed all other rules of driving country back-road style. Usually, when driving backroads, it is couture to slow for a stop sign but basically use it as a yield. We made it to the school with nothing less than smiles coming from the backseat and Carrie Underwood's Black Cadillac. Doesn't get much more country than that, unless of course they were playing Dixie Chicks, Cause Earl Had to Die.
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