4 Wheelin

in a Volkswagen Passat!

During the past eleven years that I have lived on this little winding road of mine I have seen at least six or seven cars that have slid off of it and are then in the need of a tow truck to pull them from their peril. I have also heard of many more that have fallen victim to its tempting twists & turns, so it came as no surprise late Friday night when another car made that number rise once again. What did come as a shock was finding out that the newest member to experience this frightening mishap was my 84 year old Mother!

It is amazing that she wasn't seriously injured, and what is even more incredible is how she made it out of the car all by herself and up my long, dark, steep, & winding, driveway. This would have been a huge and scary feat for anyone and especially for someone her age!

You can't tell very well from these pictures but it was a lot steeper than it looks and it was a far drop from her door down to the steep slope of rocky boulders she had to climb over once she got out.

So this is what happened. My Mom was on her way over to my house since my Dad is in the hospital (his third trip within the last month) and she doesn't like to sleep alone. She was probably exhausted from taking care of my Dad these past four weeks and made the simple mistake of turning up my neighbors driveway instead of mine which is also dark, steep, long & winding. She got about halfway up and realized she was at the wrong house, so she put the car in reverse and started backing down the driveway, the only problem was she forgot to make the sharp turn at the bottom and backed straight out over the edge.

By the time she made it up to my front door she was pretty frantic and hyperventilating. We didn't know what was wrong and immediately feared the worse, until between her pants & sobs she finally got a few words out ... neighbor... driveway.... rocks. My family rushed outside to investigate and when I stepped onto the front porch and looked out into the darkness I could see in the distance the silhouette of her car as it lit up from someone's headlights as they drove by. The front end of her car was sticking up at about a 70 degree angle out of the rocky boulders that laid below. I couldn't believe my eyes and realized the severity of what had just happened. I immediately wrapped my arms around my 5 foot 99 pound Mother and cried right along with her.

About an hour and a half later the tow truck finally showed up and with the help of Pat, Nate, Justin, Jake, Brandon, & Mark they were able to pull it out without any major damage to her car. Pat had the brilliant idea to lay boards underneath so when they pulled it up it would roll over the boards instead of the rocks. This seemed to do the trick and her car escaped with only a few scrapes on the bottom.

My Mom was lucky to say the least and even though she was pretty shaken up she was more embarrassed than anything else. She can't believe that she did something so "stupid" and even called herself that more than once last night. But none of us see her that way at all, in fact we all know what she really is and that is... one T O U G H Lady!