Headed for the hills

We haven’t spent much time in the badlands west of town for a few years. During the past few years, Rick was ill and had a few surgeries. He is doing much better and, on Sunday, suggested we needed to get out there to have a hot dog roast. So after church, feeding the bum lambs and letting the neighbor’s puppy out for a potty break, we headed for the hills.
During the time Rick was ill, I did all of the driving, so he has gotten out of the habit of driving. That, coupled with the fact that we have inherited a fairly new pickup with lots of bells and whistles he hasn’t figured out yet, meant he told me I had better drive. That was a new experience for me because he has always done the driving when we went boondoggling in the hills.
It was a fun day, but we did find out that, now that we are entering the senior status, we need to make sure we have some creature comforts when we head out. I packed the food and everything we needed for our roast, but we forgot to take lawn chairs along. There was a time that we would just sit on the ground, but now that’s kind of out of the question because it would take a crane to get me back up — or at least several minutes of struggle.
But technology came to my rescue! I ordered some chairs from Amazon, right there, out in the hills, with my cell phone. It is so fun to do that and then tell Rick, “Well, our lawn chairs will be here on Thursday.” The look on his face is priceless. I know I shouldn’t make fun of his being a technophobe, but it is kind of fun.
I told him that, as we look at friends we have known, especially in the mechanic world, people have found their comfort zone and never really gone beyond it. We have known awesome John Deere mechanics that never were comfortable working on anything newer than the 2-cylinders, Farmall mechanics that never went beyond the H and M models. And we have known car mechanics that never want to work on anything that doesn’t have a distributor. So I told him that it’s okay if he doesn’t want to mess with the computer — I will gladly do that.
We roasted our hot dogs and had a wonderful time enjoying the outdoors, but then it was time to head back out. My new-to-me pickup got stuck coming back up a hill. It wasn’t muddy, but the bentonite type soil has gotten “fluffy” from the moisture and the pickup just started spinning. Well that was okay, I turned the knob on the dash that put it in 4WD, and up the hill we went. Wow — what a difference from having to get out and put in the hubs, then wiggle the gearshift levers to get into 4WD like we used to with the old pickups!
So yes, we will go back to the hills to have more picnics, but we will make sure we have a shovel and our lawn chairs. And yes, I do love our new-to–us pickup truck.