Adventures in Driving

Our oldest son just got his drivers license a few weeks back... Talk about feeling old.

With school back in session, it's sort of a relief, in that I no longer have to make that drop-off on the way to work, and it's nice having someone else who can run to the store while we're trying to cook dinner, but I think it's an understatement to say it's more than a little frightening...

Green Two (our 9 year old Jeep Cherokee) is now his "to drive"... He think's it's his forever, but I'm just not ready to part with it yet... Green Two had been garaged for the past year, knowing this day would come. After a couple hundred bucks in repairs (new battery, headlights; the engine and tranny mounts had long rotted away, and a couple of the mounting bolts had actually broken off in the block...), she passed inspection and was back in the street legal category.

Something else about Green Two -- the 6" lift kit and 35" tires... Being a 4x4, it's just a matter of time before #1 would want to take her off-roading, so he and I headed off last Sunday to a place lovingly known as "The Pit" which is really a river bottom, and did a little exploring. #1 did the driving, and #3 came along for the ride..

I have to say, he did pretty well for his first time off pavement. We found our fair share of scrub to run into my side of the Jeep (depth perception is acquired, eh?), and a few two-tracks which had been pretty well rutted out. Climbs up and down were no problem, and there was only one point where I really got concerned and had to take over... We were driving on an angle up an incline, and he managed to plant the right front tire high enough that the left front was airborne, and the right rear was at first digging in, and then also airborne because he'd spun it a little too much...

After we switched, I managed to let gravity work, took another stab at heading up the ridge, and got up, but deemed it a little too much for him to try again on his first day out. So we headed off in another direction for a while.

I love getting off road and exploring, and I could tell he was having an absolute blast as well. I know he's going to head out on his own with his friends some day, and I'll find out the Jeep is either stuck or rolled, but hopefully that won't happen for some time...