Two Kinds of Stuck

I work for my dad every Friday afternoon.  I basically manage his office; filing, payroll, accounts payable, invoicing, etc, and it means a weekly call to my dad that pretty much starts out the same way every week.

Me: Dad, is there anything you need done this week?

Often, I catch him toward the end of his workday, and he'll ask if I can wait the five or fifteen or however many minutes until he's back at the office (aka: home), and we'll just go through the invoicing together.

This past Friday's call went precisely that way as he explained that he was just finishing up some repairs at the home of a family friend who lives only minutes away.  I hung up and returned to my tasks, not at all anticipating the next phone call.

Dad: Um... I probably won't be home as soon as I'd said.

Me: Okay.  What happened?

Dad: Well, I kind of put my truck in a hole.

Me: (Feeling much more like the parent in this situation) Do you need my help?

Dad: Yeah, probably.  I doubt I'm going to be able to get it out by myself.

Me: Okay, where are you?  I have Skyler and Perry with me... we'll come help.

Dad: Um... I took a short cut...

Me: (Shaking my head)  So how exactly do I get to where you are?

My dad proceeded to give me directions to a dirt road which connects "the neighborhood" (as it was referred to when it was a part of one of the many wards they've been randomly assigned to while living in their current location) to the Coke plant road and directions to find a tow rope in his shop.  I loaded up and headed out to his rescue.  Heaven knows he's rescued me enough to deserve the returned favor.

And here's what I found.  He didn't manage to find just any hole.  No, he'd backed into a large, man-made, cement trap and not an inch of tire was touching anything besides air.  

After an unsuccessful attempt at creating some traction (I missed it, but Skyler told me that the tire shot the board out, knocking my dad over quite successfully), we went the boring route and just hooked up the tow rope and pulled the truck out.  I carefully backed my car up - avoiding all the holes - and went home, unaware that this was only my first experience with stuck for this weekend.

After a fun night of dinner and games at a friend's cabin in Midway, we woke Sunday morning to this:

It looked gorgeous on the trees.  It looked gorgeous in the valley (even if it did obscure the gorgeous view I'd intended to photograph).

But it looked significantly less gorgeous here, especially knowing I had precisely 2 hours to get down the mountain, through Park City, out to Draper to pick up the kids, and back home for choir practice at 11 am.

It caused even more problems here, as Jason's car momentarily got stuck in the driveway.

We did a pretty fun version of sledding down the mountain in a car.  You could hear the anti-lock brakes going crazy and feel the car doing whatever it pleased.  As we slid, we discussed the options (since stopping was apparently not one of them) and concluded that if necessary, Kirk would steer into a snowbank.  We'd be stuck, but at least not injured.  Thankfully, he was able to guide the car's descent, and we made a slow but safe trip back home.

Two kinds of stuck in one weekend?  I'll just be grateful to have fun stories to tell!