Mission: Impossible

So I almost died this weekend.

Kinda, sorta, or at least genuinely feared for my life. That's kind of like dying, right?

So this weekend was the grand "ATV retrieval" party. Four of us left on two MONSTER ATVs at about 2pm on Saturday, GPS in hand, to go get the two stranded ATVs from last weekend's venture out on the land.

The first five minutes just about killed me.

You see, I may have grown up near the water, and I have pretty much always been ultra comfortable with it. That is, when it's in its liquid state. Different story when it's frozen. Or half frozen.

I swim like a fish, but from a very early age I've always had this fear of falling through the ice. Maybe it was mom's insistence we check the ice depth before skating on the pond behind my friend's house... maybe it was swimming lessons drilling into my head that you need at least 25 cm to drive a truck on the ice...**

So the whole driving on the ice, while there was easily anywhere from 3 inches to 2 feet of melted water on top??? Terrifying.

Now Mom, don't freak out. Turns out there is still like 17ft of ice BENEATH that 2 feet of water... but it's still terrifying. Pretty sure I spent the whole way there muttering "please oh please oh please oh please" and clutching onto the back rack like a madwoman.

The stranded ATVs were about 14 km away... and we made it half way before we had to turn back. The snow was just too melty, and there wasn't enough tundra to get there without stopping every 5 minutes to tow out one of the ATVs. And that half took us a good 2 hours. That's how wind-y the trip was, because we were on a constant search for tundra.

Not to mention having to stop every 20 min or so for either a photo shoot... or because the weather was feeling schizophrenic. Pretty sure we saw three seasons in 2 short hours. We had almost-blizzard snow (luckily only lasted about 5 minutes), we had hail (hurt like a mo-fo, little pellets whizzing at high-speed straight for your face?? Not fun), and we had beautiful warm sunshine. I even got a bit of sun (I could tell because when I got back, I noticed the freckles had made an appearance. Only happens with the first "tan" of the summer...)

The way back was less terrifying... I guess I figured if it held us on the way over, it would hold us on the way back. And I was right. But the boys decided to give'r on the home-stretch... and we all ended up soaked to the bone by the time we got back to town.

It was a good go of it though... and then we had a BBQ afterwards... delish steak, shrimp, grilled veggies, scallop potatoes and Pino Grigio... not to mention a round of Scattergories. All in all? A pretty sweet weekend.

Then I slept all day Sunday. Gotta keep the balance, doncha know?

**Of course, this seemed impossible "down south"... where winter's last less than 9 months...