Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Adventure Dating

So, anyone who knows me...knows that my idea of a "hike" includes a mall, a credit card, and a hot pretzel. I am dating a guy who lives in western MA, and I went out to his place on Saturday. We had quite the adventure. One of those things I should probably write to match.com and tell them about. He drives a huge truck, and he wanted to take me around the Berkshires and show me his favorite spots. So we first stopped at a place where you could walk a little ways in and see dinosaur footprints. Very cool. Then we went to Amherst and bought a bottle of wine and cheese and crackers. We continued on, and he said I distracted him and he took a wrong turn and we ended up out in Chesterfield, MA, which wasn't on his planned "tour" but he loved the Chesterfield Gorge and decided he'd show me that as well. The road into the gorge was barricaded by a snowpile with a sign that said closed for winter. He decided his truck could jump the barricade and with 4 wheel drive we'd be able to get back in there. So, we did. The road was a rutted, icy, muddy, snowy, mess. We get about a mile down into the gorge to the spot Nate wanted to show me, and he tried to turn the truck around and we got stuck! He was so cute, trying to get us out. He felt really, really bad, and I figured he'd just dig a little bit and then we'd be golden. Well...not so much. He didn't have a shovel in the truck, just a hammer. He was dressed nicely but had old clothes in the truck so he changed and then went to work trying to dig us out. He tried everything. I walked down to the gorge and it was cold, but sunny and an overall nice day, but the big storm was coming. They predicted 18 inches and he knew if he didn't get the truck out it'd be stuck there until Spring. He worked for 3 hours...even tried using a power winch (sp?) but kept snapping the rope. Poor guy, he was covered in mud and so we had to hike the mile back out of the gorge. We grabbed the wine and cheese and went to it. He apologized the whole way and said he was going to take me to a nice dinner. Then he told me about all the things he had planned for the day...I told him he owed me another date. So, we got out and there was only one house, a log cabin llama farm, near the gorge. So we stopped and asked if we could use the woman's phone. She didn't trust us one bit. Very backwoods...she reluctantly let us use the phone (no cell service out there) and we called a towing company, and they wanted a callback number. He explained his cell didn't work and the woman wouldn't give us her phone number. So the tow guy said someone would be there in 45 minutes. We walked back to the little "rest" area where the sign for the gorge was and waited. It was getting dark and very cold. So Nate built a fire right there in the snowy lot. We ate the cheese and crackers and drank the wine, waited for over an hour, the moon was out, pitch black and I started to get a little scared, so we went back to the llama farm and asked ot use the phone again. The woman let us in, said she never saw the tow truck and worried about us, but didn't want to call the police because she saw we had a bottle of wine and didn't want us to get caught for underage drinking!!!! Now, he looks young, but not that young! Anyway, she let us in and she had called her husband's best friend to come over. He showed up thinking we were trouble! He explained what happened and the two of them went out to pull Nate's truck out of the gorge. What a crazy night! I was stuck with this woman for a half hour who was a little loony, but friendly enough.
It turned out to be a great night anyway, and a good story...my little boyscout! He definitely owes me another date!!!