It’s been a different type of Christmas this year. Usually we go to my sisters on Christmas Eve and my dad’s on Christmas day, unless we travel to New England to spend the holidays with my wife’s family.
This year, we met with Dad early, and we aren’t going to see Sis until next week. So we had a mostly quiet week at home with the kids.
It was a really wet week, especially for the desert. One thing I did not plan on doing this year was meeting the town Swift Water Rescue officer, who by the way, they call Scuba Steve. That should give you an idea how wet it got. Let’s just say the puddle didn’t look that deep, and that Jeeps don’t float.
I should probably explain, I wasn’t in the Jeep, I was watching from the “shore” as they tried to get my son and my Jeep out of the flooded street. In his defense, he was just trying to get to work and had tried two other streets that had been blocked off. This one wasn’t blocked, the water didn’t look very deep, and so he gave it a try. Unfortunately there is one big dip for a drain right in the middle of the road. Had he been going East instead of West, he most likely would have made it through, but he didn’t.
By the time they got the vehicle hooked up to the tow truck, the water was up to my son’s backside, but they asked him to stay in the Jeep and steer as they pulled it out with a winch. They managed to pull it out, the boy is ok, but the Jeep is in bad shape.
Water pours out of the door of the rescued Jeep.With all the commercialism and hype about the Holiday Season, it’s times like these that make you remember what is really important, it’s not the cars, the toys or the shiny baubles, it’s the family and friends that we should cherish.
