Angels watch over us when we are stupid.5 days ago I engaged in a little foray into the cultural underpinings of Lewis County life. Though my status as a "townee" remains in tact, somehow I have gone my whole life without tasting the exquisite thrill of "mudding." This is not what I thought it was as a kid--stomping around in a mud puddle or making mud pies (I even was known to take an occasional dump in a mud puddle...after making the mud pies of course). Real mudding is actually taking a vehicle and driving it through the mud. I suppose it is an uber-male thing to do but I dabble in uber-maleness so it was a no-brainer (that's not to say something of my intellect).
Shad bought a 4-wheeler a couple weeks ago and after riding it for less than a week decided that it would just be more fun to have a buddy ride with him. So he bought another one. He threw the invite out to me and I was more than eager to snatch it up being that I have absolutely nothing to do anyway.
Tuesday morning dawned cold and gray. When I got to Shad's house at 9:00 a.m. he had already loaded the quads up in his old blue chevy truck. We set off toward winlock and found our destination in the logging roads out Jones road. After reaquainting myself with the controls (I'm used to dirtbikes so there was a little adjusting) we bombed off toward this mud flat. The road down there was hairy. I killed the quad two or three times and had to have Shad drive around one spot. But when we got down to the bottom, it opened up into a glorious flat field filled with possibility for true mudding nirvana. We raced around for hours and laughed at ourselves as we got covered from tip to toe with mud. Of course, I got stuck a few times and was thankful that Shad could pull me out without too much strain. We finally left the grass flats and headed back up to the road for some trail riding.
Shad had heard from David that there was a good trail up to the top of this little hill where you could look out and see for miles so we zoomed up the trail. Shad told me that there was a hairpin turn up at the top and when I was there I would need to give it all the gas in first gear because it was a steep little last leg up to the top. Things were fine for me up until that fateful hairpin turn. I turned the corner and gave it the gas but only made it halfway up the steep section before I lost momentum and began to roll backwards. The next sequence either happened really fast or really slow...I can't remember. I clutched hard on the front hand brake but it was not slowing me down. I was searching for the foot brake but was apparently too freaked out to actually press it down to stop me. Shad was shouting some nonesense about hitting the brakes. As I was gaining momentum going down the hill in reverse I started to look for a place to bail out but before I could, I found myself in the air. The quad was no longer underneath me. I was flying, unfettered and free, backwards to my certain doom. As it turned out, the 4-wheeler had abruptly ceased it's decent down the hill by meeting a fallen tree which sent me flying through the air with the greatest of ease. I landed about 10 feet off the trail in a pile of brush. Shad ran to where he had seen me last to survey the damage and pick up the pieces. The question, "Dude, are you all right?" was probably uttered a dozen times in the minutes right after the spill. When I got back up to the trail and looked down where I ended up, I reallized I had miraculously landed in the one spot of brush that couldn't have impaled me. If I had landed two feet to the right or left, you might be hearing this story from holier man.  I rode away with a few scrapes and a bonk on the head that turned into quite a headache later in the day.
Honestly, I don't think I learned any kind of lesson with this incident. I'll definitely go riding again. I'll definitely wear a helmet again. I'll definitely try something that is over my skill level. But angels watch over us when we do stupid stuff, so I'm sure I'll be fine in the end.
Amen. | 
