Recombobulated

You’re not going to believe this, but we got stuck in the mud again.  Some people will never learn…

To be fair, Justin wasn’t part of the first mud weekend.  It was his truck that got stuck, but he was safely in California at the time.  So, when it was time to put the jet skis in the lake, he didn’t have any relevant experience to draw on.  Steve, Nathan, and Hannah were all very concerned about him getting his truck stuck, so they all very carefully made sure that the grass was dry and not muddy and that he had a good, safe path to the lake.  Nobody thought about how muddy the bottom of the lake would be once he backed the trailer in there.  So, he very carefully backed a trailer with two jet skis into the lake with Steve and Nathan making sure he wasn’t going to get stuck in the lawn.  And, he immediately got stuck in the lake.

We didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, curse, or yell.  I think we did all of those things by the end of the day.

The first thing we did was make sure that Steve wasn’t going to try to get all the other vehicles we have stuck.  But, Nathan did go get his 4 wheel drive truck (that doesn’t have a trailer hitch, which is why we weren’t using it in the first place).  Nathan tried to pull Justin’s truck out.  He was doing okay but it looked like Justin’s truck was getting damaged and potentially going to lose a bumper or snap the drive shaft before the truck was actually going to come out.  We decided to invite Bob over to help since he didn’t get to play in the mud with us the first time.  He brought his truck with a fancy winch on it and tried to use it to get Justin’s truck out.  But, it was really and truly stuck and it wasn’t budging and the threat of real, permanent, possibly catastrophic damage to Justin’s truck looked like a likely outcome.  Bob went and got some huge planks of wood to help.  In the meantime, one of our neighbors who lives directly across the lake texted, “Hi Carrie.  It’s Geoff across the lake.  Looks like you got a truck stuck in the lake.  Let me know if you’d like some help.”  I didn’t think twice, before responding, “Yes, please!”  He came right over.

Next thing you know, we have Steve, Nathan, Justin, Bob, Geoff, three Fords, a Chevy, a winch, a bunch of wood, me, Wendy, Hannah, Josephine, Andrew (an engineering student), a baby, and three dogs all looking at Justin’s truck.  Seriously, how many Kishes does it take?  9, if you count Bella and Zeus as Kishes.  How many trucks does it take?  4, if you count Justin’s.  How many neighbors does it take?  4, if you count Bleo (Bob and Wendy’s dog).  Geoff offered to bring his two labs over if we needed more “supervision.”  While the guys were contemplating the solution, me, Hannah, Harrison, and Wendy pulled up chairs in the shade to watch.  Josephine took the jet skis off the trailer and over to the dock.  And, Andrew determined that his skills were better put to work building my garden fence and went back to doing that (a story for another day).

As it turns out, Geoff has a whole lot of experience getting trucks stuck and unstuck.  He was humble and generous and said it’s because he’s just gotten himself stuck so many times.  But, I think it’s probably more likely his work experience as a police officer.  Geoff, Bob, Nathan, and Justin had that truck unstuck and out of the lake in no time.  It was mostly Geoff and Bob with all their fancy equipment and experience.  Justin drove and Nathan entered hard core learning mode.  As a kid, you could stuff Nathan in a closet without a teacher or any books and he’d find something to learn.  Not that I ever actually stuffed him in a closet, mind you.  Hannah discovered a new superpower that day.  She’s a great on the scene news reporter.  She took a fun video of the truck actually being liberated from the mud.  Check it out:

Click here for Hannah’s Truck in the Mud Video