Tuesday, July 5, 2016

A Muddy Fourth

The first thing I did this morning (well, after I cleaned up after breakfast) was wipe the mud off the tote bag we took on our trip this weekend.  
That's important because the mud was a big part of our trip to The Canyons on the 4th. 

The Canyons play an important part in the memories I made when visiting my grandparents.  We didn't go often. It's years between visits.
It's a longish and roundabout way to get there by car, and impossible to go all the way down without a four-wheel drive vehicle.   My grandfather bought the land for summer pasture back in the day and to get into it means going across somebody else's property. 
It isn't accessible to just anybody.  There are gates to unlock, curves to negotiate, and mud holes to get through. We go by the invitation of my uncles. 
The mud hole part is NOT NORMAL.  In all the times we've been there we have not had to navigate mud holes.  
However, it's rained more this spring than normal.  It rained the day before we went.  Therefore, there was mud.  

On the way down. 







Stopped with no way to get around. 


Stuck.


These four guys pulled Lila out with a tow rope. 


Then Uncle John went charging through and it was our turn.
And here we sit.  


We were loaded with passengers so all our luggage, food, etc. was in the back and got mud splattered.  We climbed out of the less muddy side and watched the getting out process from our picnic spot.  
Two jeeps are hooked up to pull our pickup out. 


And....they did it, by pulling out of the hole the pickup was in at an angle. 


Most of the picnic group. 


There have been several reunion picnics over the last 26 years.   Those that had young children are grandparents. Some who were children then have children of their own now.  Our grandparents are gone and another generation has taken their place.  The same games are played, the little ones spend all the time in the water, and there are still 
4-wheelers and jeeps in the creek.  The older ones watch the younger ones at play.  We eat and visit and enjoy each other and the day.  






Mom found a frog.  It's about 3/4" long.  
Cutie.



Here's a photo to prove we were there. 




You may be wondering how all those people in one of the above photos got down through the mud hole when I only have two pictures of stuck vehicles.  The rest were warned and parked in a flat place not far from the bottom and walked down either carrying their things or enlisting the service of a helpful jeep driver. 

Now we all had to get back out.  The walkers went out the same way they went in, but we had three vehicles to get out of this mess.  


Uncle John roared Lila's white vehicle right through, going through and up the steep and slippery slope hidden by the trees by coming from the side. 
Inspired by Uncle John's success, Lila roared his pickup straight through, and got stuck.  The two jeeps pulled her back out and her brother went right on through.  
Now it was Jim's turn.  He went without us so if he did get stuck we wouldn't have to wait or wade through the mud.  
He did get right through and as the watching crowd watched him rev up the slope we could see the first pickup right in the way.  Would Jim make it?  There was either more room than we imagined or Leonard moved a little farther along. 

Mud

Looking back.


We're out and on our way back 'home.'



2 comments:

Renee said...

Oh, what a lovely post about our wonderful day. When Jim was roaring through, we could see that Leonard hadn't gotten very far out of the way for a pickup that was going flat out to try and get through the mud and we were screeching...."Move, Leonard, move" and then he did, Whew! I guess I must say some of my fondest memories involve the "canyons" The day we were going to drive cattle to the canyons was always one of such excitement. To me, anyway. Did you ever get in on any of the cattle drives?

Gramma's Corner said...

I never did go on any cattle drives. It was the wrong time of year, I imagine.