[strollerssfsfs]

Ever since graduating high school I've had this incredible urge to just go out and drive on roads far away from home, or from anyone else for that matter. Some members here know I basically stay at home or go to work, and don't go on any large trips, so I have to get out somehow, and that usually means driving on roads I don't know, or in the middle of the woods, somewhere so I don't have to constantly see city streets or stoplights every ten feet.

Tonight wouldn't have happened if I actually learned anything from last week. I drove my car in a parking lot here in town that had about a foot of snow. It wasn't plowed, and I thought, "what the heck", so I got a running start, entered the parking lot, and did almost an entire loop around before I got stuck. In that situation I was in the best place to get stuck... literally across the street from the nearest house, 12:30 in the afternoon, on a weekday in case I needed to call the tow truck. But I managed to dig myself out with only my bare hands and a little determination.

I told myself afterwards I'd never take my car places I knew it couldn't handle, but stupid me, I did it again about an hour ago. When you're young and got AWD for the first time, you tend to have this "It'll never happen to me" attitude despite all the stories out there saying "yes, stuff CAN happen". And when you play with fire, you get burned.

So there's this trail about ten miles from my house. It looked wide enough for off road vehicles and other vehicles with some variation of four wheel drive. About a couple hundred feet down the road it splits into two roads; one goes to a house whose owner drive a Toyota pick-up; the other goes sharply uphill into some deep woods. Guess which road I took.

So my father and I are in the Subaru, and I had told him I already went up it twice in the past. In those situations there was no ice and only about half a foot of snow on it, and I did go to the top of the hill without a problem. But tonight was a different story. It rained yesterday and the road turned to complete ice. I got halfway up it, realized it was glare ice, and I spun. I stopped, tried to back down, and the car slid to the right. Again, I was stupid and thought a little momentum would help, but instead I slid the car into a ditch, into some trees, and almost into a small swamp.

"Now how the heck are we gonna get out?" Dad said.

My cell phone had no reception, it was 5 PM, it's Christmas Eve, it was getting dark, the house a few feet away had no one inside, and I ended up running two miles to the next nearest house. The scared part of me was knowing I'd need to enter some complete stranger's vehicle and put him in a situation he probably didn't need to be in. I told him the whole story about what happened and he's like, "You know, that road was only made for snowmobiles. People with Jeeps have gotten stuck much further down that road and I had to help them out, too". I offered money but he kept refusing. He had a heart of gold, and if it wasn't for him, my father and I would have had to walk ten miles and leave the car there for two days until a tow shop opened.

Long story short, my car has a tow hitch on the back and I had this towing cable in the car I bought at Wal*Mart for $15, and out of sheer luck we managed to get the Subaru pulled out of the ditch within about 15 minutes. He spun all four wheels, I spun all four wheels, and he ended up dragging me out until I was back on the road. I could not thank the guy enough and was so happy I hugged him (awkward, I know). I finally drove to the end of the road after he left and I cried in the car so hard I almost had to have Dad drive. Dad starting talking about how I'm his "little boy" and no one ever stops learning, so he ended up laughing and I was quite the opposite.

I don't want any sympathy because I was stupid and got myself into a mess I had to get myself out of.

I just want to wish you guys a safe and happy holiday season. If anything, I just hope what happened to me convinces someone who thinks they're invincible that they REALLY do mean it when they say "your car wasn't meant for off road". That, and be prepared for the unexpected! I had no shovel, no gloves, a quarter tank of gas, and it was the worst place in the worst time of the year to get stuck. You can fix scratches on a car, but as Ron White once said, "You can't fix stupid". And yes, the rubber around the right-side windows of my car is all scratched up.