Providence Trail

Jeep Glamour Shots:

Matt, in all of his glory: The one picture of me. I don't know if you can tell by my hand posture, but I was terrified at the moment. Yep, terrified....that Matt was holding my camera.

Strangely enough, this is not where we bent the tie rod.

Taking off the tie rod:
This is how you fix things on the trail.

Last Saturday we went jeepin (GEE-pin, verb. To be jostled about for several hours inside a big-wheeled vehicle. Especially appealing to rich people, rednecks, and reckless husbands with extremely indulgent wives.) with some of Keaton's work buddies who, coincidentally, all happen to own fancy lifted jeeps (though more of wrangler variety. There was one other cherokee and a four-wheeler as well). We went up to a trail right outside of Providence--so pretty! And of course, whenever one of them tackled an obstacle, the others had to go over it too. Not to worry, these guys all hail from the vehicle ops department and are, as Keaton so often reminds me, "professional vehicle operators." :)

We did have a bit of a snag when the tie rod on Keaton's jeep bent as he was going over a rock. Normally this would have put us out of commission...but this was no ordinary group of guys. They did emergency surgery right there on the trail, removing the steering, bending the tie rod back by cramming it in the nook of our bumper and using three guys to leverage it, and then putting it back on. We went the entire rest of the trail with no problem. (unfortunately we still have to replace the tie rod. Sigh.)

The coolest part, I thought, was the butterflies--the whole trail was glittering with the flutter of orange wings. I commented how pretty it was, and one of the guys replied, "Yeah, it's nice now--but think how many catepillars there were two weeks ago!"

Umm, gross?

A great ride--I love that time with my hubby. I've even learned not to mind being jostled. I might even call it "fun." :)