Desert Driving

I had prided myself on my 4X4 and desert driving skills, that was until I went out in the desert today. I went out with 3 other guys from work . The larder of the group was a guy whom until till today I thought of mild mannered and almost geekish. But what that man did in the desert took serious bravery and skill. I was amazed what he even got me to do out there. I swear I have been out in the desert driving more than 20 or 30 times., heck I even took a two day course on it but what we did today far surpassed anything I have done. Enough with my preamble I will get to the story.

Today, as you know, we went out into the desert in Al Ain to drive. We started out in a place I have not driven in before. After we met up we drove to the starting point and deflated our tires. Then we drove about a ¼ mile to up a gentle slope to a 300 foot ascent up a dune!!! I saw the first car – the mild manner guy- do it with no problem and figured it would be fine for me. FAIL! The worst part about failing is that you have to back down a large sand dune – I am talking 200 feet in reverse downhill, and that is nerve racking. And of course we did not make it the second third or fourth time. Good story was we got stuck I was sure that I could get out but I was not positive so I decided to look to see if I need a pull out of the sand or not. Well I found a muffler on the ground under my car. I was so bummed out I not only could not get up the hill but I had ripped off my muffler. On further inspection it turned out to be another car’s so my friend removed it and I started making more and more attempts up the hill. The whole family was getting anxious and worried we would never make it up. I was also worried I would be stuck at the bottom on the hill. And of course the guys we were not letting me give up. The guys did tell me the problem was not that I was going fast enough. So I decided to speed up and I got up the hill. It was one of the hariest things I had ever done in the car and was totally out of my mind. That is until we descended the hill on the steep face (almost a 90 degree angle straight down hill) of the hill. Yes after climbing a 300 foot hill we deemed the steep end of that same hill. The kids were freaking. The trick about this part was that  we drove down below the next hill so we were in a bowl so we had to gun it back up another 45 degree angle hill of about 100 feet. But it all turned out fine.

Then we went on to a ridge drive. A ridge drive is when you drive on the edge of the sand dune with a good 100 to 300 foot drop on either side of your car. The kids were pretty amazed and freaked out about this. This part of the trip was a blast but not as intense as the first, though there was a section where we did a ridge drive that was about ¼ mile long. The ridge was a pretty gentle on the driving side but on the opposite side was a drop off of about 200 feet at a 90 angle.  This part of the trip had us doing some driving that for the most part I was used to and the kids were fine with most of it. Granted Our leader did like to take these dramatic drop offs. I swear we must have done 5 90 degree drop offs of more than 150 feet. The kids got a bit anxious about those but I was pretty fine with them. Driving down a sand dune cliff face is a bit like sledding in your car. You have all the weight of your car pushing you down the hill but also bogging you down in the sand so your car just kind of slowly drifts downhill. Granted you do have to make sure you use the brakes as you do not want to pick up too much speed. Another neat thing is that if you give the car some gas then the wheels will spin and you will be lifted out of the sand and kind of ride the top of sand you are pushing down. You need to accelerate some just before the bottom so you are not buried in the sand you brought down with you.

Well we drove around a bit more till we came to a small crest. The trick about driving over crest is not to go to slow as what happens is you get bogged down at the top of the crest. Of course on this particular crest (about 50 to 100 feet high) I let off the gas a bit to early so I did not make it over. Then there is the whole reversing downhill issue. So we made our second attempt on this one I got up to just the top of the ridge and got thoroughly stuck. I had to have one of the other drivers pull me down hill. On my third attempt I made it up and over with little difficulty.

Because I had difficulty getting over the guy behind me decided to give it a little extra push up the hill. His little extra gas did the opposite of my too little gas and it launched him over ht hill landing his car on the bumper. Not figuratively but literally his car hopped over the hill and landed on the bumper of the vehicle. His car was balanced perfectly on the bummer of the car. It was as if he picked up his toy car and balanced it that way. I have to say we were all worried that it was going to tip over on to the roof of the car. But luckily he got the car to fall back on its wheels. He had to climb into the back of the seats of the car and the weight shift made the car drop back on to its wheels. Truly an amazing site the people I went with had been desert driving for 7 and 15 years and they had never seen it. Granted the guy who had been out for 15 years did manage to roll his car over once.

Well unfortunately shortly after that one of the cars started to overheat – this was a recurring problem- and we were forced to cut the trip short as we had to pull his 4x4 out of the dunes and back to the roads. All in all we had fantastic if albeit scary time in the deserts of Al Ain.

As far as my work is concerned they have not said yet when they are closing the department down. As it stands they are supposed to stop accepting new students in Fall semester 2011. If this is so then I will have about another 2 years before the department closes.  On a positive note since my department cannot hire new full time faculty they interview Tita for a job and it sounds pretty positive that she might get a job – they even mentioned salary for the position in the interview. Also Tita had an interview to be a kindergarten teacher in a government school and they recommended hiring her as well. The problem is that the Abu Dhabi Education Council might not accept her as she went to k – 12 in the Philippines so they might not consider her a native English speaker.

Diet and Exercise

Starting a new diet!! Well actually starting my old diet again. It happens every 2 to 3 years that I balloon up to 210 and I need to crank back the diet so that I get closer to 180 – where I should be. It is painful to diet no questions about it but it is necessary.

Started walking again I hope that stick to that as well. I need to keep moving as my blood pressure is a bit high and it helps with the diet as well. I hope to keep motivate enough to actually start jogging again. I used to love running when I lived in Saipan. I thought I would not like it here as it is a desert but the few times I went out – in the wadis I actually did enjoy it.

Wish me luck