Last year on my birthday, my son wanted to go out on a 4x4 trip to Waiporous.
Just me and him father son kinda trip.
It had been a few years since I had been out that way so my son loaded a map onto his phone and off we went.
Looking back on it I should have known better and we did everything wrong...
1. No set route / map
2. Went by ourselves
3. No supplies
4. etc.....
On the return leg there were a bunch of steep hills that, unknown to us, had bypasses.
We didn't know that and went for it anyway as we thought it was the only way out.
Well on the third hill we ended up at a pretty steep angle halfway up one of those hills.
Brakes locked just sitting there waiting to flip over backwards and tumble down the hill.
The $1000.00 I spend on the brakes for this jeep after I bought it was a godsend as we sat there for what seemed like an eternity on the side of this hill.
Slowly, and I ,mean slowly, I was able to release the brakes enough to roll back down the hill about 200 feet or so to what we hoped was a bypass.
It was.
Once we got around the hill and before the next one, I sent my son for a walk to see if the side route was another bypass.
It was.
While he was off looking I think I had my first actual panic attack.
I can handle doing stupid stuff on my own and getting hurt, but the thought of bringing harm to my son was overwhelming.
My legs started to shake, got the sweats, you name it...
We determined that all the side route were bypasses for the remaining hills so we made it out without incident.
Once we got home I had a very stiff drink and started crying...
Didn't sleep well for the next few days either.
Even now thinking about it gives me the willies...
Next time, I will definitely plan better.
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