week 3 travel

"Which way do we go?"  I ask as we come to yet another intersection. Stephanie looks in every direction.
"I don't know... let’s just go... this way?" I continue to go straight, trying to ignore the fact that my teeth are chattering so hard it feels like they are going to shatter. I have no idea how long we have been riding, but it’s dark now. Its dark and it freezing!
"Oh man, I wonder if they are looking for us." Stephanie said as I stop because our path turns into a y.
"Geez, now which way do we go? I have no friggin idea where we are. Do you think we are still in Oakfield?" She laughs at that.
"I don't have a clue! I know my fucking hands are cold though." I only nod; my hands are pretty cold too. Wish I had that other pair of gloves right now! We decide to go right and continue on our way. The snow glistens in our dim headlight. If I weren’t so scared of running out of being lost I might actually enjoy it.
“Go faster, it’s a straight away.” I go faster. The trails just keep going and going. We have taken so many turns, who knows we probably have gone on the same trail a million times. Could be going in circles for all we know. All of the sudden it’s like the trail disappears from under us. As I fly through the air I see Stephanie land on her head, and the snow sled spins into the ground, landing right on its nose. I get up, a little shaky.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god! Are you OK? Stephanie! Stephanie are you ok?”  She looks at me with a blank expression for a second.
“OH SHIT! Sterling’s sled!” I help her up and we go to the sled. I actually wish I had a camera right now, because the sled is literally sticking straight up out of the snow. We grab onto the sled with our freezing hands and pull with what little energy we have. Finally it comes free. Stephanie tries to get it started, but it just sputters.
“Let’s wait a minute and try again. I sit on the sled and light up a smoke.” Stephanie looks at me for a minute then sits next to me.
“Can I have one?”
“No.” She looks at me in disbelief. I laugh and hand her one. After we finish our cigarettes I try to get the sled started. After a couple tries it starts. Thank God! Stephanie decides since I wrecked us that she would drive. In my defense, it really was quite a little drop off from what appeared to be only a little hill.
We get back on the sled and start on the trail again. After what seemed like hours we came to a sign that had been spray painted red and black. Stephanie practically screams in excitement.
“AHH! I know where we are! It should only take about forty five minutes to home from here!”
I’m so happy I could cry. But, of course our luck can’t be that good can it. Not long after we pass the sign, the sled starts to sputter. Then it dies.
“What the fuck!”  Stephanie says as she looks down at it. “Oh no! We are out of gas, and we still have a long fucking way to go!” I have no idea what time it is, but it has to be late.
“They must be looking for us by now, right?” I looked at for a minute before she answered.
“Dad will be looking for us. But, they only have one sled because we have Sterling’s. They won’t have any idea which way we went.” To add insult to injury it starts to snow.
“Oh great!” I said as the snow lands on us. “Should we walk?” She just nods and we start walking down the trail.
We must have walked for a good hour before we heard the sled. We both freeze where we are and listen. About a minute later we see the headlight. It was Stephanie’s dad.
“Jesus! We have been looking for you two for hours! Let me guess you ran out of gas?”
“Yes, the sled is back there, a ways.” Stephanie points back the way we had come.
“Get on, I have gas, I figured you would need it. Let’s go get the sled and get you girls home.” We climb on the sled and go to retrieve Sterling’s sled. We follow her dad home.
We pull into her driveway and her mother, sister and brother come outside. I tell Sterling that I crashed his sled. He goes and inspects it to find that it is cracked from the top of the windshield all the way to the bottom, on the front.
“I am so sorry!” He laughs.
“It’s ok, really. I’m just glad you guys are ok.”
We go inside and sit down at the table. Stephanie’s mother starts to laugh.
“What?”  Stephanie asks. Her mother grins.
“You guys must be pretty cold. You have icicles hanging from your eyelashes!”