Oh Deer

Heading out to my dad's to pick up my three oldest, we ran into (not literally) a herd of about twenty deer just before going through the gap. They were so beautiful! Bear was in the back seat asleep and missed the whole thing.



We were thinking about waking him but then Kinnzi leaped out the window and chased the deer. I was so ticked she did that, we didn't get along the rest of the day.



If the deer and Kinnzi weren't drama enough, slowing down to see the deer made us lose momentum and about half way through the gap, which was solid ice, we lost traction and no longer continued to go in a forward motion. There is no cell service in the gap nor on the back side. I was seriously thinking about walking back out to the front of the gap and calling my dad's house, but we wanted to try to push first.

The really funny thing is we just got done listening to a story by Glen Rosson about a boy and his dad on a hunting trip when they came upon a slick hill they needed to climb. They were up in the mountains and on one side of the truck was a pretty steep embankment. Half way up the mountain their truck lost traction and the dad was flooring the gas to get the truck to do something but sliding all over. The young man was scared and asked his dad to stop but his dad just gave him a reassuring smile. Something happened and the dad had to let off the gas and the truck started sliding backwards toward the embankment. The young man thought they were going to die but the dad got back on the gas and eventually made it over the mountain.

Now back to us. We were in the middle of the gap with a huge mountain of rocks on one side and a steep embankment down to a creek on the other side and we start spinning out going no where.

Big D, who is wearing shorts at this time, drives while I get out and push...a Dodge Grand Caravan...up hill...on solid ice. Who said chivalry is dead, actually I voluntered since Big D wasn't dressed for the blizzard raging outside.

I pushed the van about fifty feet then it would go no farther. We were sliding everywhere, there was no room to turn around, and it would've been too dangerous to try and back out of the gap.

We switched places and I tried to drive and Big D try to push, but to no avail. I put the car in park to switch Big D again and the car started sliding backwards.

A car came through and just passed us without a look back, that's always nice. We saw a strip of gravel in the middle of the road and figured if we could just get our wheels to that strip we should be able to get some traction.

Big D got back behind the wheel and I started pushing again. We finally pushed the car sideways enough to hit that strip and it worked. Thirty minutes after we went in the gap, we finally came out the other side.

That night on the way home we decided to go the long way out and around the mountain instead of trying our hand at the gap again. I looked at Big D and thanked him for the drama, but I confessed I'd had enough for one day. Yeah, we made it home safely.