The Bronco part III, I think

When I used to drive anywhere, I was always on the lookout for new trails. If I saw any opening into the woods or a field at all, I would veer straight off the road and go flying down it. I gave my fellow travelers a few tense moments because they were never sure when I would be charging off the road into some abyss. You haven't lived until your best friend's head has gone from talking to being smashed off his window instantly.

Now, I have mentioned some of my disasters while driving down some train tracks before. Luckily, this was a different area about 15 miles north of that colossal fuckup.

Billy and I were out cruising around looking for shit to drive into/over during a snowstorm when we came across a trail that ran parallel to some train tracks. It was a trail that we knew was usually blocked by some big-ass rocks, but someone had moved them. We couldn't possibly pass up an opportunity to go down a new trail and smash up my truck some more, could we?

So, off we went.

As we were tearing down the trail, we came upon a windfall (a tree that has been blown down by the wind) that was lying across the trail. The tree was just long enough to keep us from going around it and it was about three feet off of the ground, so (theoretically) we couldn't go over it. Billy conceded defeat, but I had other ideas. I figured that I could put the nose of the truck against the tree, hit the gas, snap it in half and off we would go on our merry way.

It didn't work out quite that way that I had planned.

We eased the nose against the (larger than I thought) tree and hit the gas. The tree bent a bit and then stopped us in our tracks. Now, me being a complete and total moron, I didn't realize that I should back off and go home unscathed. I figured that I would remedy the situation by stomping on the gas pedal.

Not too smart.

The tree flew over the front end, smashed into my side of the windshield and then went through the side window directly behind me. Now, when I say it went through, I mean IT WENT THROUGH. The tree was so far into the truck that it ended up being within 18 inches of the window on THE OTHER side of the truck. If that fucker went through the driver’s window like it should have, I would still be drinking my dinner through a straw. Probably Billy as well.

Now, I had a conundrum.

My choices were either

A) keep going forwards and risk ripping apart what little side window that I had left while also risking not being able to get back

B) reverse and have the tree come through my driver's side window this time

C) stop where we were, walk to a phone and call someone with a chainsaw to come into my truck and cut the tree out of it (the smart thing)

I chose B.

Luckily the tree ripped out and didn't smash out my window but it did rip my driver's side mirror right out of the door.

Now, I was stuck in Portsmouth on a Sunday morning during a snowstorm with no money and a 3' x 18" window smashed out. It was more than enough room to fill my truck full of snow. Luckily after some scrambling we found a place in Exeter that worked on Sundays. They threw a chunk of plexiglass into the frame just to keep the snow out. That was only after they broke two other panes before getting the 3rd in and charging me for all of them.

Oh well, it could have been worse. I could have a tree for a face. (insert joke here)

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Another time we were charging around a sand pit in the Bronco having a hell of a time. We were hitting jumps, whoop-de-do’s and several other obstacles at high speeds.

Now, we had been in this pit before but there had always been one hill that we could never seem to make it up no matter how hard we tried. The hill lined one whole side and was 200’ in height with about a forty-five degree incline. It was a steep bastard. In the past we would always make the first 100-150 feet or so but we would run out of steam before we reached the top and would have to back down. Backing down that incline wasn’t much fun either, but that’s another story.

Well, I don’t know why but I was bound and determined to make this time different. With the pit being about 600-700 yards long before the incline, I planned on using every single inch of it. (insert ANOTHER joke here, B-face)

I backed up to the furthest edge of the pit and stomped on the gas. We got up to about 35mph or so before we hit the incline. With that speed and the incline, we hit pretty hard but the old girl kept chugging right along. We got about ¾ of the way up when she started to bog down in the sand. Then it was like the hand of the Bronco God gave us better traction. The tires connected on something and we instantly shot up to the top of the hill. We had so much speed combined with the incline that when we hit the peak, the truck became airborne. When we crashed down and got our bearings, we had a bit of a surprise.

We were in a (nicely manicured) field of green.

We ended up landing right in someone’s back yard. Not only that, but he was sitting on his back porch about forty feet away.

The guy was probably content as hell while sitting there on a nice summer afternoon with his feet up and an umbrella drink in his hand until this giant piece-of-shit Bronco came flying up over the hill and into his yard.

He just sat there staring at us with his jaw hanging open and a "surprised as fuck" look on his face while the dust settled all around him.

It was funny as hell but we didn’t stick around to get a second look.