Wrecked Cars

Abigail’s on a “wrecked car in the woods” kick. After rediscovering the car in the woods next to the park by our house last week, she asked if I knew of any other cars in the woods around us.

Having ridden in the woods around town for so long, indeed I did know where there were some old wrecked cars in the woods. In fact, I thought one may have been an old truck.

Once she heard there was an old truck in the woods there was nothing stopping her from going to find it.

Finally Sunday afternoon in a light drizzle after swimming, climbing and no nap, we set off on our truck finding adventure.

Of course we had to take Gretchen in case there were bears. Yeah it’s sort of like a bear hunt, but a truck instead.

And Lauren too.

So yeah. I’ve got my two little girls in the woods full of poison ivy, the height of deer tick nymph season, it’s drizzling ever so slightly, I can’t remember exactly where this vehicle is, don’t know if it’s a truck and don’t know if the underbrush is too thick to see anything anyway, don’t want to disappoint anyone AND we’re going to be late for dinner. Was I a little stressed? You betcha!

So we hiked up the trail, down the trail, over the slippery rocks, past some other trails and down to a rickety slippery bridge over a 5′ gully with 6″ of water rushing in the bottom. I took one half step on the off camber bridge and new it was dicey, so I made Abigail stand still while I crawled across it with Lauren on my back. On the other side I sat Lauren down, then crawled back for Abigail. Then Abigail and I crawled across together. Safe on the other side we headed off into a different part of the woods.

But it was too thick. There was nothing to see. We could barely see across the creek valley and certainly not to the bottom of the creek. It was getting late and it looked like we’d struck out. We did find an old 10-speed, but I could tell it certainly wasn’t the truck Abigail expected.

We headed back across the slippery rickety bridge (this time all of us crawling together), and tried by chance one of the little trails we’d passed. This whole area kind of tracks around and behind a town home community. Our trek across the bridge and to the other side of the creek valley took us away from the town homes. In my experience things like old junked cars and junk in general are actually found closer to such communities. Maybe these other trails would stay closer and take us where we needed to go? I mean why else would there be these trails behind the 8′ privacy fence than to explore and see old junk in the woods?

Wait! What’s that I see?  Is it junk in the woods?

Sure enough we came across what looked like an old road cut or some kind of machine dug bank with all kinds of junk. There were old bike frames, refrigerators, glass (everywhere), etc. This must be the place! But where’s the truck?

Then we found it. Rolled down the bank from the junk pile, resting upside down against the trees. Only it wasn’t a truck.

It was a station wagon!

Unfortunately Abigail wasn’t as impressed because it wasn’t a truck, but she did enjoy the hike outside, the adventure and exploring.

Now we just need a truck somewhere

– b