offroading was so much fun, except for the almost dying part.

so, flashback...

after a jam-packed week of working long too-busy-for-lunch hours, birthday dinners, surveys, meetings and a kick ass DCFC and FF concert, Saturday began. We cleaned and ran errands, and I spent a lot of time in the Target return line. I went to our Leadership Workshop (VERY Productive!) and had mm mmmm mmmmm sushi with the girls. I returned home to clean/straighten things before Dan and Cory arrived at 1230am! (and I cleaned out a closet, which I'm quite proud of!). We had some tea and went to bed.

we got up earlyish and left for Uwharrie. I made a half-apron on the trip. It's from a target fabric naprkin and some bias tape and yellow floss/string. tres cute. see?

We drove around, took cute/pretty pictures, went on trails and the like. It was HORRIBLY dry though. We came home covered in dust and were rather parched the whole time. We watched some guys try and get their rigs up some impossible rocks, and could even see where one guy had just taken the tread off of his tires. And we saw a little gecko. And we were pleased that the boys weren't trying to do the crazy stunts like those other folks. There were some tricky spots on the trip, and I got some fun pics of Otto spotting Dan on his way down. And then it happened.

We're going down the path, and it's a pretty narrow hill. Ruby, Otto's jeep, probably has a foot and a half or so of wiggle room on either side. To our left is a big mud/dirt wall and to our right are some trees and foliage about a foot thick, and behind that a, I don't know, let's say 1,789,054,685,103 foot drop, roughly. We're going along, and Otto's hugging the wall, driving Ruby close to it, though he's not aware of this 1.0*10^97 foot drop. And we go over some big rocks, and Otto puts on Ruby's emergency break and gets out of the car to spot Dan as he passes them.

and then it happened. Ruby kept going. Her emergency break had been slow to catch, and Otto thought it already had caught, but nope. Not at all. So, Carrie's buckled in, screaming "Otto!" and trying to reach the brake pedal. Which she couldn't. And since Ruby was on a kinda steep incline, Carrie couldn't unbuckle her seat belt.

yikes.

all ended up well. the terror lasted I'd say somewhere in the range of 15 hours, or more like ten seconds, maybe. and I grabbed ahold of the emergency brake, pushed in the button and pulled harder and Ruby stopped a split second before Otto was able to hit the brake pedal. Everyone was fine, but I was shaky for a bit. thankfully I did not have to change my pants, as all I had to change into was a half-finished-at-that-point apron, and that's certainly not G or even PG.

whew.

Pizza was the dinner of choice, and per usual it was de-lish. And I finally(!) got around to watching Walk the Line. Which was so good I may jsut watch it again tonight before I have to return it. Dan and Cory and Otto enjoyed it too.