Fordyce: 22 Hours of Adrenaline

3 nights ago was the craziest night of our lives so far.

Here's the short version: 1 trail, 2 off-road buggys, 22 hours, half of them at night in windy 18 degree weather, icy hills near edges of cliffs, freezing bodies, chapped bleeding lips, winching for hours. If this got your attention, keep reading. Here's the whole story.

Sunday night we were packing up our gear to go rock crawling. We had decided for our first time out in Angelo's new rig that we would hit up Praire City OHV park since we couldn't find anyone to go with us to Fordyce or Rubicon.
Then we got the message; a guy named Pat from the rock crawler forum wanted to go wheelin' with us on Fordyce Trail near Tahoe. He has a kick butt toyota off-roader. Saweet! Fordyce was going to be so much more fun than Prairie City so we decided to respond to his message and meet up at 9am at the trail head Monday morning.

We woke up Monday at 6am. It was still dark outside and we were pretty groggy as we got ourselves ready. Last minute, Angelo pulls out our snowboarding/skiing pants and coats. "I have a feeling we might need these, just in case" he said. So we bundled up in our snow clothes, fed the cats, packed PB&J for lunch, and headed out the door.

We got to Angelo's parents house in Colfax, where Angelo is currently keeping his buggy, we got a breakfast of hot cocoa and oatmeal, loaded everything into the truck and the buggy on the trailer said our goodbyes "we should be home sometime around 6 or 7" and headed off to the trail.

We met Pat right on time at 9am at the parking lot near Fordyce Trail, shook hands, gawked at each others rigs and said "Alright let's do this!" and began our ride on the fireroad that lead to the trail.

It was mostly dirt with a few patches of snow at first, but as we got up to higher elevation there was more and more snow. Pat's rig had awesome tires that crunched through the snow like nothing, Angelo's tires were bald but still managed to run through the snow no problem. This was going to be a fun day.

We got to the top of the mountain and began our decent down the other side to the bottom where Fordyce trail begins. There was about a foot of snow on the ground as we wound our way down the switchbacks on the mountain.

I was a little bit nervous when we were going down one hill in particular where there was snow and ice curving around a narrow turn right next to a 200 foot drop off. Angelo wasn't nervous at all which gave me a bit of confidence and sure enough, he was right. We made it just fine. The nearly bald tires didn't even slip. Whew.

We kept cruising down the hill, crossed a bridge and coasted down a hill with a cliff 10 feet off to our right. No stress, we weren't even close to the edge that time and the only direction we could slip was further down the trail, not off the cliff.
We hit an ice patch about a car length long which sent us sliding about 10 feet down the trail before we came to a stop right before a fallen tree. Darn. We would have to move it to keep going. Pat stopped just before the ice patch and hopped out with a saw in hand. He and Angelo worked on cutting the tree enough to clear off the trail. It took about a half and hour so we still had plenty of time to keep going. It was about 10:15 at this point.

At about 10:45 am we reached the beginning of the trail. There was a sweet rock ledge next to a big pine that we had to bump up. Pat took his shot first. After 3-4 tries without success, he decided to take the snowy bypass. Then it was Angelo's turn. After a couple tries and relining himself up, he crawled up like it was nothing. First obsticle down.


The next part of the trail was a rocky hillside dusted with 6 inches of snow. I filmed Pat and Angelo as they crawled down the slippery rocks, then hopped in to ride down to Committee river Crossing.




We got to the river and followed Pat across to the other side. The river was pretty low, flowing at about 100. It was cake to cross.





We stopped on the other side for our lunch of PB&J and Pat's awesome homemade pretzel mix. I laid on the roof of the rig and warmed up in the sunshine for a bit before we kept going. I looked at my watch and it was just past noon. Perfect. Plenty of time.

We crawled along and came to another fallen tree. This one was a bit bigger then the last one so it took the boys a bit longer to clear. I waited and since I had cell service I uploaded a few photos to Facebook of our ride, cleaned the snow out of my boots, and hiked around a bit.


Once the tree was clear, we started up our rigs and began the climb. Pat made it up first, then Angelo worked at it for a while. The snow was deeper here so his tires couldn't hardly get any traction. After 20 min of little success, Pat turned his Toyota around and hooked his winch to the front of Angelo's rig and gradually started pulling him up. He made it up after a few tries.

I looked at my watch to check how we were on time: 1:30pm. We only had a little longer before we needed to head back before the sun went down.

We crawled to winch hill 3, the point that the boys really wanted to make it to that day, and of course, winched up the snowy slope.


The top of the hill had a crazy awesome obstacle: 3 ledges 3-5 feet tall and a choke point that you had to shimmy up. Pat crawled up the ledges, started working at the choke point then SNAP! A loud crack came from his front end. He had broken a hub which meant he now only had 3 wheel drive instead of the 4 wheel drive we needed.



I suddenly felt a lump in my throat as I thought about all those hills that we came down that we needed to climb back up. This would definitely set us back a bit. I looked at my watch; it was 3:15pm. We had totally lost track of time and the sun would be setting in less than 2 hours. There was no way we'd make it back before sundown. We took a deep breath and began heading back.

We made it back to the river crossing by 4pm no problems; the trees were all cleared so we were making great time. I was a little more optimistic, but still nervous.

We crossed the river, then came the first ledge. Angelo made it up fine, but Pat's broken rig needed help. This is when I started feeling worried. He couldn't even make it up a dry rocky ledge without help and the rest of the trail was uphill. All those snowy and icy downhills started running through my mind; they were now snowy uphills. And no doubt as the sun went down and the temperature dropped all those snowy hills would soon ice over. We needed to get out of here and fast.

We made it about 100 yard before we had to stop again. We had hit our first ice patch and there was no way we could make it up without winching. We found a tree up the hill, wrapped the strap around, pulled our rigs up, and used all the momentum we had to climb the hill 100 more yards, then we lost traction. So we found another tree, wrapped the strap around, winched up, and used our momentum to get us another 50 yards. The sun had just gone down and the temperature dropped dramatically. Here we go...

Our rigs were now sitting on flat ground, but we had a choice to make: Off to the right was the bypass that they had closed off since the whole thing had iced over with lots of trees along the sides of the trail. To the left, was the snow covered rocky ledges that we had come down at the beginning of the day with almost no trees along the sides. So slippery snow and no winch points? Or solid ice with lots of winch points? Either way we really needed to winch, so we chose the icy bypass.


Every 50 yards we winched up that hill. One tree after another, hiking up the hill to wrap the strap, hiking down to start the rig, then winching up. Over and over.
I kept watching the clock and called out the hours. 7pm, 8pm, 9pm, 10pm... We were wearing out and the temperature was dropping. My cell phone had died and I was doing everything I could to keep Angelo's alive just in case. His family had been texting and calling us every hour asking if we were still okay, they were so worried.

Our hands and feet had gotten so cold that we could barely feel them, so I marched in place to get my blood circulating and we all put our hands on the warm radiator to get the feeling back into our hands. I looked over at Angelo. "How optimistic are you?" He took a second to answer but said "Oh, we're going to make it!" Okay, I thought, don't stress yet.

At 11pm we had used most of our energy and needed to get more. We were still running on our PB&J from lunchtime so we pulled out our Ritz chips and started munching and drinking as much water as we could handle. The ritz felt like paste in our dry mouths and every time we drank the cold water our core temperature dropped so we tried to manage our food and water intake as best as we could. We had to keep moving, and to do that we needed food and water.

Our thinking was starting to get foggy, but our adrenaline was still pumping. It was getting harder to find good winch points, so when Pat found a big stump that we could reach, he wrapped his strap around, hooked up the winch and began pulling his rig up the ice. One, crawling slow, two, no traction yet, three, patch of snow, a little traction, four, there was a loud SNAP! and Pat cries out as he's trapped in his rig which is now free sliding down the hill - the stump had pulled right out of the ground! I screamed out for him to brake and after sliding 80 feet backwards his tires caught some good ground and came to a stop. We all were pretty shook up but quickly grabbed the winch line and found another tree.

Shivering and now scared out of my wits I looked at Angelo "Are we going to make it??" "Yes." he said "Yes I promise we will make it." I was having such a hard time seeing myself past this night. The next two hills, the two I had been afraid of coming down, I knew were going to be our hardest and I couldn't see past them.

We grabbed Pat's winch line and hooked it to the nearest tree we could reach, this time a thicker one that we knew would hold him. Pat winched up and stopped in a patch of snow.
Then we unhooked the straps, and took them to a tree that Angelo's winch could reach, but as we wrapped the strap around, Pat looks at me and says "Crap! I lost the screw!!" We start digging in the snow, backtracking, trying to find that screw. We needed that screw to be able to use that strap, and we needed that strap to get as much length as we could out of the winch. We couldn't find it, so we started digging through our toolboxes and backpacks trying to find something, anything that will work. Pat found a locking pin that was thick enough and strong enough to hold, so we decided it was our best shot and used it to hold the straps together.

As he winched Angelo up, I went on a walk ahead to scout out what was next and to get my blood flowing cause my feet were frozen again.

Tears flowed down my face as I tried my hardest to control my anxiety. I had never been this tired, this cold, or this scared in my life. I prayed that God would calm my anxiety before I had an anxiety attack, passed out or threw up and that He would warm me up. Then I looked up and all I could do was sigh. My heart slowed as I stared straight up above me.

There right in front of me was the most beautiful star covered sky I had ever seen in my life. They were so bright and I could not believe how many stars there were. I took a deep breath closed my eyes and suddenly felt a blanket of warmth around me. There was no doubt in my mind, God was with me. We were going to be fine. And now I knew what I had to do.

I wiped my tears from my face and walked back down to where the boys were. "Alright" I said "give me that winch" I grabbed the hook and marched up the hill. "We have only 2 more icy hills to winch before its flat again." I found a good tree and threw the strap around, hooked up the winch and gave the thumbs up.

We did this for the next few hills, then I hopped back into the rig and we kept going as long as we could. We had 10 min of flat snow with gradual upgrades, then we hit the next hill and Pat lost traction.
Once again we hopped out of the rig and scouted out winch points. There was nothing to winch to this time except a couple of super small Charlie Brown trees that I could probably wrap my hands all the way around. Nothing else... So we had to give it a shot.

Angelo watched Pat, I watched the trees and yelled out when the first tree gave out as it caught onto the second tree. It held just enough to get Pat up the hill, and Angelo was able to crawl behind.

We hit a patch of dirt and I never thought I'd be so happy to see dirt in my life. DIRT!

Our faces were so dry that they hurt and our lips were bleeding from how chapped they were. We fumbled around in our backpacks for chapstick and when we found it it was frozen. I heated it up just enough with my hands to get it to work. Thank goodness. My lips hurt so bad.

Next came the icy hill we had slid down where we cleared the first tree. We used all of our momentum to get up that hill but stopped once again at the ice patch. Off to the left was that cliff, and off to the right was a wall of jagged rock. We looked and looked for winch points but once again the only thing we found was a Charlie Brown baby tree. We threw the strap around and I watched the tree, Angelo watched Pat and we winched Pat up. We decided that since this baby tree was about done and probably wouldn't hold Angelo too that we would winch Angelo up to Pat since Pat was secure in a patch of snow and still attached to the tree.

Then we had a system. We would hook Pat up to winch to whatever we could, (which was mostly small cracks in the wall of rock) I would watch the winch strap to make sure it stayed secure, we would winch up Pat until he was firm on the snow, then winch Angelo to Pat. We did this over and over.

Exhausted in between winches I laid down on whatever dry rocks I could find and closed my eyes hoping that my internal heater would kick on and warm me up. Pat woke me up asking if I had found the next winch point and I jumped up and showed him the crack in the wall I had found. I had to climb up the side to get to it, but it would work.

We had been working hard, but the 18 degree weather and the wind had taken most of the heat from my body. Pat had an enclosed rig so the boys put me inside there to warm up while they figured out the next thing.

When I was warm again I hopped out and walked ahead to scout out what was next.
I couldn't get that curving icy hill and cliff that we could potentially slide off out of my mind. It was icy earlier which meant that the snow had probably turned completely to ice now too.
I wanted to see how far ahead it was if I could so that way I could hop out before we got there. I couldn't imagine strapping myself into this thing that may slide off a cliff.

I walked and walked until I was warmed up, but I still couldn't see that knarley hill.
Walking back I felt my stomach turning. The cold, lack of good food, and the stress was making me nauseous.

They had one last winch to go. They hooked to the bridge at the top of the hill and pulled up one last time. We had made it to the top. This icy hill took 2 hours. It was 4am when we got to the top.

But we weren't done yet.

I got back into the rig and we set off climbing and climbing, then came the hill I was afraid of. I looked off to the right at the black abyss and prayed hard. I held the straps on my seat belt tight and clenched my teeth "Oh God, oh God, oh God..."

We climbed around the curve slowly and then Pat began to slip. We stopped, and thank goodness Pat stopped too. "I'm getting out!!" I yelled. "Give me the winch Pat! We are winching this hill! I am NOT letting us slide off that!" I said as I pointed to the edge of the cliff just behind us.

I ran up, wrapped around a tree and we winched again, and again, and again.

We made it to the top. I was so relieved that we had finally passed both hills I was freaking out about so much that I fell into my passenger seat and passed out.

The next hill we stopped at I barely remember. I was so exhausted. I remember opening my eyes for a second as they winched up and heard them say that I was a trooper. I smiled and fell back asleep.

Next thing I know we are driving again but Pat was slipping. "Oh heck no!" Angelo said and he put his bumper on Pat's and pushed and pushed until Pat was unstuck. "I am NOT winching again!!"

We kept up a good pace rolling up the snow until we saw dirt. DIRT!! Then we climbed, faster and faster, until we reached the peak and started heading down the other side. We were finally heading downhill. Hallelujah!

We kept rolling down the hill and praying that we would make it all the way without having to stop and winch again. 10 min later we were still going.

At the last leg as we curved around the turn we heard a loud roar off to our left. There was a big angry bear behind us now! "Tell me you heard that!!" Angelo said. I did. So we kept going as fast as we could trying to get out, and then... we saw the parking lot! I let out a cry of relief and I couldn't stop smiling! We were close to warmth and soon after a bed to sleep in!

I could not believe how happy I was to see that truck. It was 7am now and we had finally made it back as the sun rose over the ridge of the mountain. We quickly loaded up, said our goodbyes to Pat and texted Angelo's parents that we were alive and on our way back.

45 min later we pulled into the driveway. Angelo's mom came running out of the house tears streaming down her face and wrapped her arms around Angelo and I so happy that we were alive, safe, and home. She wiped the tears from her face and lead us inside to where she had hot cocoa, towels for a hot shower and a bed made up ready for us to crash in.

We couldn't have been more thankful for those three things. We finally got into bed at 8am and slept until 3:40pm...

We woke up sore and hungry, looked at eachother in disbelief and said "What the heck happened last night????"

We still can't believe it.

The Kid, The Scientist, and The Marshmallow

Have you ever heard the story about the kid, the scientist and the marshmallow?
Anyways the story goes something like this:
A scientist decides to conduct an experiment on the patience of a child. He brings the child into a room sits him down at a table and puts a marshmallow in front of him. The scientist then tells the child that "I'm going to leave now. You may have this marshmallow if you want it, but if you don't eat it and wait until I come back, I will give you 2 more marshmallows." Then walks out the door.
There are some children who would immediately pop the marshmallow into their mouth and not even give it a second thought, but then there's this kid.
He twiddles his thumbs and sighs, then tries to entertain himself in any way possible as he waits for the nice man in the white jacket to come back. Why? Because he knows that if he can be patient, something better is to come of it.

Story of my life lately.

We have a decision. We can try to get a house now but have to pay more to do it, or, we can wait until February and save money and potentially get a better house then.
New curveball, but we know that if we are patient something better is to come.

Stamp of Approval

We are pre-qualified for a loan.

This doesn't mean much but thankfully the amount is what we were hoping for.
We are going forward to the next steps of trying to buy a home. Our first shot, house #1, we'll call it the house by the train tracks. Tomorrow we sign some paperwork to finish the pre-qualification thing, then we'll try to put in an offer and see what happens. We're praying hard as always.

Let the emotional roller coaster begin. Hopefully I won't vomit... or die.

Jumping In With Both Feet

And so the adventure begins. In a quick real estate internet search we came across another house that we would like to try and buy. This one is surprisingly cheap for what it is, which makes it very unlikely that it will still be there when we get the funds, but still it doesn't hurt to try.
We drove past the property and looked in the windows, checked out the neighborhood and all is looking pretty darn close to perfect for what we would like to purchase at this point.
We have contacted a loan officer and realtor to see if this type of thing is even a possibility and we're hoping to hear back what kind of loan we might qualify for. It's all so nerve wracking.

The part that is not so fun is the wondering what we should do in the meantime. Our lease at our apartment is up at the end of December and they want to charge us an arm and a leg more per month more to go month to month until we figure this whole thing out. Hopefully we will be able to determine the possibilities soon enough to not have to deal with that. But again, we will see.

That is the latest update in the housing adventure round 2 for our live as of late. Till next time...

Door Number 23 Closed. On to Door Number 24.

We've been praying and praying the past few weeks for God's guidance in this whole rental home search. We've prayed for wisdom. We've prayed for peace. We've prayed for God to take it away if it is not what He wants for us.
After a few weeks of battling with the rental management company, sending over piles of unnecessary paperwork and, calling every few days to check up on their progress, we finally heard back. We had put in a very nice offer to pay all expenses even a month early and their answer?

No.

Back to square one. I know, I know, you may be thinking that "Hey, you know there ARE other houses out there to rent?" Well we're not feeling it. We're finding out that renting a house for us is almost as impossible for us as trying to buy one, so maybe that's what God is telling us.

We figured that God seems to be closing the rental door at the moment to possibly open our eyes again to a new possibility. Owning. A smaller, cheaper, house in a neighborhood that is close but not quite perfect. At least we'll give it a shot. One more time.

I am totally open to the idea since my dream house at the moment is a small white washed cottage in an older inexpensive neighborhood. About $100,000. Half the cost of the houses we have looked for in the past. Maybe we can qualify for one of these.

Jennifer's Dream House

I'm still super pessimistic though, since we have been through this emotional roller coaster before trying to buy a home. But maybe this time it'll be in God's timing. Maybe.
I'm not sure if I'm ready again to give this another shot. I just got over it and let it go from last time. But here I go. I'll clean off my face, take a deep breath, stand up straight and say "let's do this"
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths." This verse has been running through my mind for the past week now, over and over. It's so true though. The shock of having another door seemingly closed has been lightened by this verse that God put in my head to remind me in this moment. "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
This was the last verse that I read. Job was a wise man.

It's hard not always knowing what we're suppose to do, especially when the timing seems awful. But I believe with all my heart that God is good. And I'm sure He's got something good up His sleeve. As usual :)

And Now, We Wait

The past few days have been a whirlwind. Monday, we finally got a chance to talk with the ladies at our apartment complex about the potential for us moving out at the end of December. They were super excited for us and gave us lots of tips of things to look for when searching for that perfect house. The thing we wanted to hear about the most though, was the cost of moving out. We have been there for 2.5 years and in that time we have had a flood from a broken pipe in the apartment above us, we have nailed up multiple pictures, our cats have shredded the edges of the carpet and bent multiple blinds, and every nook and cranny has "lived in" dirt that I would have to clean up. So needless to say we were pretty worried about how many fees we would have for the "damages".

We had decided before we walked down to the apt office that I would rather clean up the apartment then to pay someone else to do it, we would rather replace the blinds ourselves then have to pay through the nose for their fees, we would rather hire a carpet man to fix the carpet, and that we would re-fill all of the nail holes ourselves. All of this to avoid spending more money then we have to on this move, but all of this would be a ton of work.

But my husband being Angelo decided to see what kind of deal we could finagle. We are now getting the carpet replaced for free, they are replacing the blinds for cheaper than we can buy them at Home Depot, the apt is being cleaned down completely to their super high standards for only $140 out of our deposit, they are repainting and filling holes, and all we have to do now is move. Plus, on top of that, we get some of our deposit back! Woo Hoo!

So then there's Tuesday. We got a call back from the management company for house that we like the most saying that since we are really interested they would like to let us see the house before the available showing date of Dec 3. We had told them our situation and time frame for moving and really wanted to help us out. They talked to the current tenant and they agreed to let us come down and see the house at 2 pm yesterday.

Since both Angelo and I work on Tuesdays, I had to go down alone to see it while he covered the shop.
I get there and as I pull up, two other cars pull up to the house. Weird. But okay.
I go up and knock on the door and a lady answers the door and invites me in to take a look. The house is a wreck. I walk through stepping over baby toys and cereal boxes and anything else she felt belonged on the floor. It took a little while to get past the clutter to see the house that we would be living in. She showed me around and then there's a knock on the door.
She asked if I was expecting anyone else, and I said no. So she answers and there is a couple standing there asking if they can see the house too.
So she invites them in and proceeds to show them around as well. Then they leave, and two seconds later there is another knock. A man is at the door asking to see the house. So once again she invites him in to see it.
It was all pretty interesting and awkward, but whatever. It gave me time to look around and try to picture what it would look like for Angelo and I to live here, listen in to their conversations and questions, and take a video to show Angelo when I got back.
When I finished, the man left and finally it was my turn to ask questions.
Appliances? Gas stove. No fridge, no washer, no dryer. That's fine. We were expecting that.
Neighborhood? Fantastic. Quiet. Well protected since there is a park nearby (no child molesters allowed) and there are a lot of cops that live in this neighborhood. Lots of kids. Walking/biking paths.
Landlords? No problems. Mostly dealt with the management company.
Planning foreclosure? Not sure. But didn't seem that way.
Benefits? Open layout good for entertaining, decent backyard big enough for a dog, 2 walk in closets in master bedroom, DOUBLE SINKS, etc.
Overall it was sounding more and more perfect. But we don't have it yet.

I got back to work and talked to Angelo about the house and we decided that we would go ahead and turn in an application. We filled everything out and rushed over to the management office after work to turn it in before they closed.
They said everything looks great and that we would know more in a few days. So here we go. First application is in, now we wait.

House Hunting

Since our lease at our apartment is up in only 1 and a half months our lives have been consumed with rental house hunting. It's been pretty fun searching for a new place, and we're getting excited about moving closer to where we spend most of our lives currently anyways.
I'm ready for a change too. And I'm ready to only have a 10 min drive to church and Bible studies as oppose to our current 45 min drive that we make 3-4 times a week. I'm ready to be able to spend more time at home instead of constantly driving back and forth. I'm ready to be able to cook dinner more than twice a week since we'll actually be able to stop at home after work to eat before our weekly night events.
So far we have found a few 3 bedroom houses for rent that fit our budget and have almost perfect locations and landlords.
It's so nice this time around not having to worry so much about compromising on things. If the location is nice but not perfect, if the layout isn't quite what we want for long term, if the kitchen cabinets are too low, if the backyard isn't big enough, that's okay because we're not buying it so we're not stuck with it either. Those things are far more okay with me knowing that I don't have to fully commit to it forever.
We have one house that we love that will be available on Dec 20th (which would be perfect) but we can't turn in our application until Dec 3rd so we are waiting and continuing the search until we find out what happens with this one.
Our ideal situation would be to move the last week of the year and to be all settled before new years. :) Hopefully this works out. We've been praying hard that God will lead us to the home He wants us to live in and we trust that He will.
So we are house hunting. And it's kind of fun. This is our life as of late.