"Adventure" Gone Bad...

Robby and I have been wanting a jeep for some while now.  To sport around in...and have "adventures".  OK, so I'm the one who wants to "sport around" and he's the one who's seeking "adventures".  Because those of you who know me know that I am not much for adventures that I think I can possibly get hurt participating in.  However, I had no idea that I was setting out for an "adventure" last Saturday.

It all started out with, "Hey, we need to go to the grocery store; let's take the jeep."  The jeep that was just purchased the day before and Hubby had already taken all the doors and roof off of.  But hey...I agreed that we did need some groceries.  As I hopped in and we left the driveway we turned in the opposite direction of the highway.  I asked where we were going and Hubby said, "I'm gonna take you for a little ride out on some of the trails back behind our house before going to the grocery store."  Hmmm...not wanting to be a "Negative Nellie" I said, "OK".

We headed out through the woods and when we came upon the first mud hole I gripped the dashboard and asked, "Are you sure we can make it through there?"  Hubby confidently replied by telling me that we were in a four wheel drive jeep, that's what they were made for.  When we came to the next one, I held on tightly again.  Hubby said, "Trust me; have I ever gotten you into a situation that I couldn't get you out of?"  Well, he had a point there, so I decided to just relax and enjoy the ride through the woods, after all it was kind of nice.  Next, we came upon a really tall hill where a ravine was below.  Hubby put the jeep in park and looked around and that's when I said, "That's a pretty steep drop, I know this is an "adventure" vehicle but I don't think we should attempt to go down that embankment.  With an eye roll he told me he wasn't going to do that.  We turned around to head back out of the trail and I was actually starting to relax and enjoy the ride.  We were talking about how much fun it would be to take the jeep to the mountains or even fly to California and rent one.  I was just thinking that "adventures" were pretty fun and that I wouldn't mind having some more of them when suddenly...our "adventure" went bad.

Let me preface this by saying that I think that at ten years of marriage, perhaps even twenty, this "adventure" could have turned out differently.  However, at thirty-two years of marriage, my reaction was not what anyone expected.  We were driving out and came to another mud hole.  Hubby stopped just before hitting the four wheel drive to go through it and that's when I knew that this particular hole just might be a little too deep for our jeep to navigate it.  I was looking out the place where the doors used to be (yea, remember, the doors and roof had been removed) and mentioned the fact that we were dangerously close to taking water.  That's when the wheels began to spin and Hubby said, "ABOUT to take on water?  We ARE taking on water!"  I looked over at his side and indeed there were a few inches of water covering his feet!

Well, we were stuck in this mud hole and couldn't go forward or backwards and all that muddy water was a little creepy and I definitely didn't want to get it on my feet.  Hubby got out and determined that we had high centered.  It seemed that this hole was much deeper than we thought and the tires were not even touching the ground.  He tried putting big limbs under the wheels but the jeep just wouldn't move.  Eventually he took his phone and headed toward the main road to call someone to come pick him up so he could go get his truck to pull us out.  Me?  I got to sit in the jeep and wait for him.

While I was sitting there I took some photos with my phone and sent them to the kids.  That's when I decided that this whole "adventure" was quite funny!  The kids were astonished that their parents had done such an irresponsible thing and somehow that made the situation even more funny to me.  By the time Hubs and his dad came driving back through the woods in his truck, the first thing he did (after judging my temperament) was to ask if this "adventure" (or "misadventure") was already on my blog.  I gave a belly laugh as I told him..."Not Yet!"

As it turned out, I had to get a little of that muddy water on my toes (I only used the tips of my toes on the gas pedal) while I steered the vehicle out of the hole.  As I drove out of the woods (trying to throw as much water as I could out with each curve) all I could think of was one thing:  Yes, this was an "adventure" and one gone bad.  However, I think that all couples who are thinking of getting married should be required to have such an "adventure" of their own to see just how they handle it.  Like I said, at the ten or even twenty year mark of our marriage I may have handled this little situation much differently.  But I have learned a lot over the years and one of those things is that one's reaction to situations is important.  Would it have done anything but cause tension if I had become upset?  Was there anything good that could have come out of telling my husband that we shouldn't have gone through that hole, at the point when we were sitting there unable to move?  Of course not.  And if nothing good could have come out of it,  then why say it?  Instead I decided to just turn a negative into a positive and laugh at the situation and call it an "AWESOME ADVENTURE"!  And ya know what?  It was!  And as I drove out of those woods, with water sloshing around my feet, I wondered what the next "adventure" would be because "Life is either a great adventure or nothing."