Mine Hill Sledding

You're probably going to ask.....what does this poor quality of a picture have to do with anything.  Well, let me tell you .......... Everything!

Here we go.  It all started with a young women/young men mine hill sledding activity.  We met at the church at 5pm for our AdVeNtUrE.  We hauled the young women and men up to the base of the mine hill where I stated that my car would not go up the slick road, being that it was snowy/icy covered and quite a ways to the cattle guard, the ending point for sledding.  One of the Young Men leaders said, "oh, come on, your car will make it to the cattle guard".  I kept stressing my point but thought, OK, I will give it a try.  Part way up, it started spinning wheels and not moving anywhere.  I told the Young Men leader who thought for sure that my car would make it to the cattle guard to get in and drive my car.  It was pretty funny when in driving gear, we were going backwards.  I'm telling you, the road was basically solid ice.  We backed down to a dry patch where he put the car in reverse and drove the rest of the way up in reverse, where I stated that where the car was on a slope and so slick that maybe we should put the emergency brake on....done.  From the cattle guard, we took a four-wheel drive truck and hauled the kids up to the next flat spot where we unloaded the kids so they could sled back down to the cattle guard.  The kids really had a good time sledding and once they got to the cattle guard, we would haul them all in the back of the truck back up to the starting point.  When it got too dark to sled anymore, I took some pictures of the valley below (thus the blurry night picture of the valley) and I told my nameless young men leader that he was in charge of getting my car off the mine hill.  His sister-in-law stated that she would do it because she had been in much more difficult driving situations than this and that way, while the others were getting rounded up, we would go back to the church and start the hot chocolate.  I turned my keys over to her and off we went.  We didn't make it very far when we started sliding and ended up sideways in the middle of the mine hill road.  There were three of us in the car and the rest were still up a ways so we ventured in trying to right the car so we could get it off the hill.  We were even pulling out some sagebrush and placing it under the tires for traction.  Finally, the youth and other leaders made it to where we were and it took us, leaders and youth, to get the car facing down hill again, where our so called (nameless) young men leader stated that he would take it down the hill.  To make a very long story short, we ended up with many youth on both sides of the car guiding it down the hill and keeping it on the road.  When we got back to the church, my car smelled awful and none of us could figure out what it was.  We went into the church where we had hot chocolate and mint cookies and the youth played some basketball.  When it was time to come home, my car still smelled a little but not too bad.  It was pretty sluggish coming home and I was thinking...man, I hope we didn't ruin my car.  When I pulled in the driveway, it stunk super bad and then it dawned on me............EMERGENCY BRAKES........we never took the emergency brakes off when we were trying to get it off the hill.  Here it is, almost an hour later, and I'm still smelling the burned smell.  Agh-h-h-h-h-h.  Guess my car will need new brake shoes, ya think!  This will be one night that I'm sure won't soon be forgotten............A full night of adventure!