Christmas tree round one

It’s that time of year when my biological holiday alarm alerts me to go find a Christmas tree. Tyler and I then go purchase a tree cutting permit from the Forest Service, and go hunt down a tree at a later date.

So on Thursday we decided to go find our tree. He promised me that we’d be back in plenty of time before I had to work, and that we’d decorate the tree the next day.

We drove out passed Minturn to find a Forest Service road that would lead us to our holiday tree. Road 731 looked promising, so we veered left and started down the road. After about 1.5 miles, we decided that we better turn around and park so we wouldn’t get stuck.

Ideas like this are great, if it’s not too late to execute them. As we backed up the truck, we slid the passenger’s side rear wheel into a snowbank. We were stuck.

At this point, I wasn’t worried to get to work because it was noon, and I didn’t have to be there until 4 p.m. We had plenty of time to get out.

After a couple hours of digging, rocking the truck, digging, and rocking the truck — we were free. We started to back down the hill.

But the front end swung around, and back in the ditch we went.

Now I’m getting worried. We don’t have cell service, we’re blocking the road, and I have to be at work in two hours. We started walking to go get help. Tyler started knocking on all the second homes to see if anyone was home. Luckily a nice woman named Lily let us use her phone. Tyler called Kent to come bail us out, and I was able to call work. A few hours later, we made it back to Vail with the Dakota around 5:30 p.m.

Final score: Us 0, Christmas tree 1.

The next round is ours for the taking.