The next day we went back with my parents to get the car. We measured the path we had taken the day before and found that after three and a half hours we had hiked 9 miles. When we got back to the car my dad just started it right up. Leslie thought this was funny, much to my relief. (Upon further inspection we discovered that the starter was going out) But now with the car running and a little time to kill we had lunch and then spent another 45 minutes chopping up the tree in to smaller pieces and pulling it out of the way.

We dove about a hundred yards and came to another down tree. It was getting late so we turned around and went back. On the way we found a privy in the middle of the woods and a lake that was frozen over. It looked really thick so my dad tested it out.

Carefully he inched his way out on to the white ground. The top two inches were slush and as he walked his foot prints gave us a great idea. If he didn’t do it himself we would make a hole at the end of his tracks and then have him back out so it looked like someone fell in. We tossed him a shovel and he tried to break the ice. We soon discovered that the ice was too thick to break with the shovel. So again I fired up the chainsaw and cut right through. It was about a foot thick but we didn’t know how deep the water was underneath. So I lowered the shovel into the fridged water to find the bottom. I couldn’t find it and began to draw the shovel back out of the hole. It was then that I caught it on the ice and lost my grip. It dropped into the brown water below the white shelf where I stood.

Very quickly we began to rationalize who would be best suited to jump in and retrieve the lost shovel. First it was me, then mom, then dad. Leslie, seeing where the conversation was going piped up and said aloud the next logical step. And she would not be taking it.

So it was back to my dad. He was a sport and after rigging him with a makeshift waist and chest harness he lowered his skivvie covered body into the water. He grabbed the shovel with his feet and back up we pulled him. It was then a long drive home where my dad warmed up and we were thankful for adventures and daring fathers.

Life is never dull…
We’ll since the last time we wrote you we have had a great adventure and found more clarity in the paths that the Lord is guiding us in.

Our adventure started after a hard day of tough conversations and work. As we were getting to bed, Matthew said, “Lets go for a hike tomorrow, we haven’t done something like that in a while.” Leslie thought that it was a great idea. The next day we got our stuff together and threw it in the back of the car, along with a chainsaw because the last time we wanted to go for a hike we were stopped by a downed tree.
After about an hour of driving, and cutting one tree, we had to chose between another hour of driving but hikeing in the high desert or a closer hike in knee deep snow. We chose the latter.

Now if you are not familiar with Matthew’s idea of fun then what happened next will resonate with you much the same way it resonated with Leslie. After choosing to hike in the snow we started to drive uphill and continue to gain elevation. Soon we were in deep snow and even with the chains on it was slow going. After ten minutes of breaking trail we came to an old growth Doug-Fir across the road.

I jumped out of the car and got the chainsaw fired back up in no time flat barely containing my joy for the challenge before me, the overwhelming sense of purpose and drive to clear the road and rescue my bride from the eminent danger from this tree. Leslie on the other hand could not fathom why we were wasting such valuable “us” time on cutting up a tree when we could be hiking. But being the supporting wife that she is, she let me have my fun and just prayed for me in the warm car as I showed that behemoth of a plant who was boss.

At hour mark Leslie was changing her prayers from encouragement for me to patience while I remained clueless to anything but bliss from this situation. It was also about this time that we used the winch to try and move the cut sections of the tree out of the road. Now I was using a 9,000 lbs winch with a pulley system that had 18,000 lbs of moving strength and I could not get it to budge. So much to my disappointment I decided to give it up and come back another day with more equipment. We started cleaning up and then went to leave.

The car was absolutely dead.

Now I have mentioned that we first drove about an hour away from our house before we made the decision to hike in the snow. And from there another ten minutes in deep snow. What I have failed to mention is that all this driving was into the forest. So we were not only with a two ton paper weight on wheels, we were in the middle of nowhere. It was about ten to three in the afternoon when we started to hike. Needless to say it was a very silent walk for the first bit. But after a good pow wow, we were not only able to have a great hike, but also a great time doing it. So we decisded to hike home

The Hike

We started to walk. At first it was up hill in the snow (both ways, barefoot and only barbed wire for traction) but soon we made it to the crest of the hill we had driven to and started our decent. I figured that it would be at least 8 miles as the crow flies to the nearest phone and 11 miles if we took a road. There was also a cliff and a stream between us and that phone. But that does not deter the likes of us.

We went cross country straight off the cliff. It was about a 65 degree cliff and every two steps would take us almost 6 feet down. It was very slippery but because there was snow we could make plunge steps and keep our footing most of the time. We did this for an hour until we came to the road we were aiming for and then took the road several miles until we made it to pavement. Once on the pavement we hike for 4 miles. We tried to wave down two motorist. They looked, paused, and then drove away. Quickly.