You're no fun...

I am reminded of the time our foreign exchange students parents came to pick her up and visit with us. He wanted to see my mountain ranch. So I took him.... to be honest what happened is partially my fault, maybe a lot.... 4X4 roads scaling mountains or sidewinding up them is just everyday stuff for me... I should have realized he might be a bit timid on those roads, but then again.. .he lives at the foot of the Alps!!! I guess I just figured he'd consider our mountains molehills.

We didn't even make it all the way to my ranch before he had a full fledged panic attack. It's about a 4 mile drive after you leave the paved road to reach my ranch... and it's nearly flat, crossing white creek several times, (very shallow), and a few small hills but nothing of significance... well, they were to him. I knew immediately the trip to the top of the ranch was out of the question... he'd have a heart attack on me... so we went to our cabin, mostly flat all the way, and hung around there... having a beer or two WHICH, took his edge off so he eventually said he'd like to see the top the ranch. Now here's the thing... once you start up you pretty much have to continue... backing down, or worse turning around on the side of a mountain can be done but only if you have a lot of experience....He was yelling for me to stop and back down - I tried to explain that backing down would terrify him 10 times more than continuing up.... but he was in full blown panic.. I continued.. I can't really type the noise he was making.. somewhere between a screech owl and a howling coyote.

Well, it ended happily. We didn't make it to the top of the ranch but I told him where we did make it to was the top so he believes to this day he conquered the mountain.

Ah, I forgot to mention.. the entire trip his daughter and his wife were with us, laughing at him hysterically. His daughter, our foreign exchange student, had been with me to the ranch many times... she knew where the 'top' actually was but she agreed to allow her Dad his moment of conquest and didn't inform him that actually we had only reached the top of the first mountain, before the actual 'climb' begins. .