Me and the family went on a little outing today, and it was pretty fun. We went to the dirt road that starts at the Tucker rest area, and drove about 10 or 15 miles up the switchbacks ’til we reached the top of the mountain, where we found a nice spot to park under some trees and ate lunch. There were tons of people up there, and it was hard to find a place that was secluded.
When we started to head home, we decided to take a road that leads to Scofield, but after driving for 15 minutes, the road got really rough and it started raining, and since my truck is still a 4X2, we turned around and took the road we came in on. On our way back down, we came around a corner and there was a car dangling half-way off a small overhang on the next corner, with the left-front hanging down at about a 35° angle, so I gunned it through the straight part then locked up my brakes when I got near (gotta love having new brakes). There were four people in the car, and nobody looked injured, but it scared the shit out of me. I jumped out of my truck and opened the passenger door of the car and had to hold it open while the chick in the front seat got out, but the car started tipping further down on the driver’s side, so I rolled the window down and put all my weight on the door. Then everybody got out while me, Traci, and the two guys from the car held it from tipping over the edge. One of the guys got back in and started the car, but since one front tire was hanging over the edge, it just spun in the air, so the other guy and I got under the front-end and pushed backwards ’til both front tires gripped. After seeing that car (it was an newer Celica) hanging off the edge like that, I didn’t think it would be back on the road anytime soon, but it was pretty easy to get back on the road, and there wasn’t much damage. The front air dam was broken and almost all the paint was scraped off, and the bumper had some damage, but that was about it–well, that was all I could see–there may have been more damage under the car. The driver told me he was trying to skid around the corner with the emergency brake on, but he must not have been a very good driver, ’cause he turned too far sideways and went off the edge on the inside of the corner. After we got the car unstuck, they just drove off rather casually, like it wasn’t a big deal. I know I was still shaking a little…I hate coming up on car wrecks.
My niece and nephew are staying over here tonight and maybe tomorrow night, because their one-year-old brother had to have surgery on a cyst, so my sister is staying at the hospital with him. Having an infant to take care of is hard enough, but having him and two other kids is more than a handful.