Thursday, June 7, 2012

The Lake that swallowed my Car!

So tonight we had an insane thunderstorm with tons of rain and hail. I got home from my date and me and my roommates went to look at the nearby creek which had risen feet and had flooded a large area. So me and Ryan set out to find other creeks that may be flooded also. We did find some very flooded ones that were way cool.


On the way back home from our flood hunt past 1am I thought we could drive though the Kings Soopers parking lot near our house. I had heard the puddles got big in there. So I drive in and see a very large puddle that seemed to cover most of the parking lot. I drove for the center of it flooring the gas peddle. We hit the puddle going fast, but the water also got really deep fast. My car slowed down immediately and i watched as the water rose up to meet me. My car then started to spudder and then it died. It all happened so fast. I looked over at Ryan and our faces went from panic to laughter. We both burst out laughing! The water was up to the doors, and i kept checking to see if any was leaking in. So we looked out and there we were in the middle of a lake up to our doors in water, in the deepest part. Floating on the water is big sheets of hail. So there we were stranded laughing our heads off. I am still laughing at how stupid i was. So after we got over laughing too hard we called Ryan's brother nate to come get us. We figured we would have to jump out the window and wade through the icy water that was up past our knees to get out. So we told nate to bring towels and come to our rescue.
While still laughing and waiting for nate to show up a big lifted F-350 saw us stranded and drove over to us. When he drove up to talk to us a huge wave came and rocked the car. About an inch of water flowed in on my side of the car putting my feet in a puddle. He drove up chuckling and said "I want to believe you just parked there, but i have a feeling you did something else." He was right, because i had done a very stupid thing. So at first he suggested climbing out of the car and going under the water to attach a tow strap to pull me out. Luckily before i climbed out he decided to drive up behind me and push me out with his bumper. So he drove around and done pushed me out. So 2 in the morning this guy saved me from my roommate Nate documenting my car stuck and flooded in the middle of a icy pond in the King Soopers parking lot. So now my car is at King Soopers drying out over night and hopefully i get it started in the morning and can drain the water out from inside my car.
I now can't sleep because I keep laughing to myself about the whole thing. And I wish this was the first time. Jeeps dont always have as much clearance as I think. That is my moral of today. I a few winters ago was in Rexburg, ID on a nice day going to Walmart. I got there and there was a small snow mound that i could have easily gone around, but i thought my jeep had more clearance. I floored it to make it over the snow mound. I ended up high centering myself on the only snow mound in the parking lot. It was a busy day, and people in big trucks kept driving by and taking pictures of me and my roommates trying to dig the snow out from under my car. We eventually got free. So tonight I learned 2 lessons. One my jeep is not lifted and can not drive under water. My second lesson is that puddles dont look big until you drive into them.

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