So, what exactly do you do out there?

I get this question a lot when I tell people we are going off-roading. It seems that not everyone appreciates or even understands the practice of piling into a bunch of crazy looking vehicles and trolling over hill and dale through the hot desert sun all day. The appeal of this is especially mysterious once one learns that it involves frequent long stops to retrieve or repair stuck or broken vehicles, peeing in the dirt, and the possibility of flipping over onto the roof of your truck or tumbling down a cliff. Oh, and it is often very bumpy. And dirty. I guess I'm not doing a very good job of describing why we think it's fun, so I'll just slap up a bunch of pictures.

1. It's great family time - We're mean parents who torture our children by not letting them have a DVD player in the car. If they get bored, they can look out the window and appreciate nature, or they can talk to us.

2. Fi practices for her future modeling career - I told you before; she is a lounger.


3. We stop to let the children throw rocks, climb up dirt hills, and play in mudpits. - There is a place along the trail called The Pumpkin Patch. It's called that because all of the rocks there are round and look kind of like pumpkins. There is also a puddle of bubbling mud that makes for a fun diversion. All of these things, kids love.

Kiddie Prison Camp

4. We flirt with disaster (a.k.a. - getting broke, stuck, or shiny side down) - It sounds kind of nerve wracking, but like Atticus Finch always said, you just have to know when to worry. Here's when we worry: a) The "that's what your mom said last night" jokes cease to fly over the CB radio for more than 5 minutes b) Tom is stuck c) Robyn gets out of the truck with the dog d) You can no longer hear the clanging of the kowbell e) You smell gasoline, see a plume of smoke, or hear screaming.

Tom was not able to make it over the very first hill on Saturday, so I was expecting a pretty rough day. But, we had very few incidents, and we followed Madeline's sage advice: "I saw some other cars going up the easy car slide. Maybe we should go up the easy car slide." I also was expecting Fiona to be a prissy prima donna and whine a lot, but she absolutely loved it. She had a huge grin as we were going up and over the hills and whoops and she kept saying,"whoa,whoa whoa." So cute!