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So what is more fun, recovering a 5 ton or two 2.5 tons?

ARMYMAN30YearsPlus

In Memorial
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Awesome write up and recovery, can you add some flavor on what it felt like going over on the side? I know being the first officer to ride in the roll over protection trainer in Iraq it is a feeling that nothing else compares to. You are right about thanking God for the snow it would have been a lot worse rolling it during the summer but then there most likely would not have been ice on there either.

Thanks for the great pictures and write up.
 

quarkz

Supreme Galactic Cleric
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Steve and Jeff glad you made it back safe.
Also looks like that Karma was looking out for you too!
Lugnuts and dollars.

To all the other posters, thanx for the well wishes and support.

To ArmyMan30 luckily for me it was a flat tow with no rear driver.
So I never ended up on my side in the lead vehicle, just a ruff ride and being parked on the inclined shoulder.
I crested the top of the hill in icy fog.
There had been small steering corrections all that morning, to compensate for the rear drive tires loosing traction.
But this actually felt like I slipped, lost balance and was about to land on my @$$.
So I tried a slight steer.
An Oh $#!+ and then wanted to steer a bit to the right into the bank.
I didn't want to reappear on the road and have to have Steve hit or have to avoid me.
It felt airborne, but I doubt it at 13000 lbs. But if I did catch air it was controlled by the anchor following me.

There were 3 distinct bounces as I saw all the stuff on the passenger seat fly up and then go forward as I came to an abrupt stop.
An un-opend soda can burst and baptized the front windscreens.
If you look at the picks the twist of the off-road pintle hitch allowed the tow vehicle to stay upright as the rear vehicle rolled onto it's side and acted as an anchor.

That fact had alot to do with how easily things worked out in the end.
I didn't get picks of the rapid drop off on the other side, the direction I was headed in the skid.
That side would have been less fun.

I really think Steve, Jeff and I will seriously consider avoiding winter recoveries from now on.

A testament to the deuce, as I heard Steve & Jeff say, that it is an amazing vehicle that can go bouncing off the road like that, be righted and then driven off with everything still solid and in tact.
Much like a child running his matchbox car around in the dirt.
That vehicle and the snow and the shallow ditch and the high hill past the ditch.
They were optimum crash protecting conditions.
Heck! all the stuff in bed of the lead deuce was still inside, just condensed forward.

Steve also relayed to me the story that transpired while picking their trailer up from the Junction store.
While we were in town looking for flares, the state trooper stopped by looking for us.
The store clerk said we had left to go look for flares in town, and asked what trooper thought we would be ticketed with.
The trooper said at the least a $174 ticket for wheels leaving the roadway.

I can only guess that it was our showing responsibility for the wreck and the safety of other by searching out cones when not able to find flares along with all the other motorist ignoring his flares and flying by us at normal speed on icy roads, that help to change his mind for my better.

YEP! It will be one of the many of my - another one of those stories.
A warning to all who are reading this and/or know me, the Deuce/Jeep/School Bus/5ton/Burning Man near misses/adventures will continue.
Otherwise, I would just be sitting at home in front of the Big Screen vegging out on TV or X-BOX, getting fat and slow in the mind.
Ya just gotta risk it, a little bit even, cause otherwise there is no spice in life.
Just cope with what ever comes along, if you still alive think, it could be worse.
A lot worse.
 
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