Later That Night...

So after (actually right of the middle) of the powder tracking in the last post, we managed to get our truck stuck in the mud. The place we were tracking at is called the "EIG," a acronym that no one around here seems able to decipher. The EIG is a huge expanse of scrub and grassland separated from the main part of the base. Lots and lots of people come to the EIG to enjoy driving trucks, riding four-wheelers, and drinking copiously, sometimes all at the same time. The area has also become a dumpster for random large items, such as couches, jacussis, doors, and even piles of carpeting.

Now you can imagine how a place like the EIG might not the best place to be alone at night, especially if you're on all fours, holding a blacklight and carrying way too much equipment for one person. To avoid muggings, Rem, Rebekah, Justin and I were down there that night, takings turns being on all fours and still carrying too much equipment. We took Big Blue, John's government truck, with us to make things go a little quicker. It did nothing of the sort. As we were headed to track the third lizard, Justin and Rebekah moved the truck while Rem and I walked to the area where we'd last seen it.

On the way, we looked to the road (really just a series of tracks in the dirt) and heard Justin slam the truck door and utter something that wasn't quite a curse word. Rem and I looked at each other like "aw, shit" and walked over to investigate. Sure enough, the truck had gotten stuck in mud so deep and so invisible that you could step on an area that looked dry and sink to your knees. Each one of us discovered this independently.

We tried just about everything. We tried rocking it back and forth to pushing it to standing over a tire that wasn't quite making contact. We even tried digging the tires out by hand. Nothing worked, and every thing did seemed to make the truck deeper and us muddier.

Justin suggested we just ask Bruce to pull it out in the morning, so we started walking and called security forces for a ride. On the way, we came upon the piles of junk. We had to try it. We grabbed some pieces of an old door and headed back for a final shot, laying them under the tires and gunning it. Nope. We walked out to the nearest gate, covered and mud and generally miserable looking. You can imagine the reaction of the gate guard, who had not been told we were coming and in fact didn't even have the number for security forces, when four mud-covered kids arrived at her gate.

We explained to her what had happened, and she agreed to let us wait for our ride, retreating back to her little gate house. The security forces car showed up a few minutes later, and we rode in the back on seats that looked like they were designed to be easily washable, lest a belligerent passenger soil it. The cop car had plexiglass between the front and back seats, which made it difficult to understand the conversation that Justin was having with the cop while riding shotgun. Justin is forever calling shotgun on people, which is especially entertaining when its inappropriate, such as when he called on Clarke and Kenny in their own truck as a joke. It was a lively conversation, and I gathered that the cop's name started with a G, that he enjoyed drinking, and that he was not from the state. It was the first time I'd ridden in a cop car, and the circumstances couldn't have been better.

So what I'm saying is, I can't wait to tell my mom that I rode in the back of a cop car. Lolz and Goodnight!