mud.

So this morning I learned how to put the truck in four wheel drive... the fun way. :)

--Background info--Almost every morning I drive the truck out to the ranch to retrieve our drinking milk. 100% organic-straight-from-the-utter milk. It is really good. I wish I could have easy access to it in Mansfield. I will definitely look into that when I get back. (I did drink soy milk before coming here, but obviously that is not accessible here.)

Anyway-- I got stuck in the mud today. It has been raining all morning and earlier, it was really pouring down. For a while. So that made the dirt roads into mud roads. I was driving on this road with the truck in rear wheel drive, every thing going well. I was driving slow and trying to keep straight so I wouldn't start to fish-tail. But then this truck coming the opposite way was driving really fast and fish-tailing all over the road. I didn't know if he was doing it on purpose but he didn't get stuck. I was trying to avoid a collision with this guy so I veered to the side of the road a little. When he passed I was in the divot that everyone wants to avoid. I started yelling NO!!!!! But it was too late. I was stuck. And I didn't know how to put it in 4-wheel. So I got out to check the damage. It was not going anywhere without some pushing help. I have been stuck in snow before but being stuck in the mud is... a little different. No matter how hard you press on the gas, those wheels will just keep turning. And there is not grass or pavement underneath the mud like there is when snow is on the ground. Just more mud. So the guy who sped past me before, saw that I was stuck. He started walking down to see the damage. I asked him if he could help me push in broken Portuguese. He was telling me things that I did not have the vocabulary for to understand, so I just nodded. But he ended up getting in the truck while I, and two other guys pushed. Finally we got out. After, he showed me how to put the truck in 4-wheel drive. It helped.

So all in all I got the milk. And on the way back I drove in 4-wheel drive the whole way and did not get stuck. Plus, I saw a little monkey with a funky tail run across the road on the drive way back. So it was a great morning. And a good story to tell in the future. :)

By the way- I love driving in the mud now. Its a challenge and I love it.