Driving Miss…

I took my older out for her on-the-road driving lesson this weekend. She’s already been behind the wheel in parking lots and has proven herself competent behind the wheel, so I took her out to the gravel roads for her first live experience.

For starters, I am proud to report that there was no damage to anyone or anything. No dents, scratches, physical injuries or anything. She stayed on the road, kept her cool and impressed me greatly. For the most part, it was like a Sunday cruise with anyone else, except that it was my little girl, and I was teaching her to drive. There were only two events that were even slightly out of the ordinary.

First, we went down one of those ‘B’ grade roads. This means no pavement, no gravel, and essentially no maintenance… nothing but dirt, and it had been raining for days straight. Fortunately, we were driving a four-wheel-drive. As soon as we started down the road, we started to fishtail, and I put the truck into 4WD. We gained traction, but still fishtailed all over the road. I’ve got to hand it to the kid though, she kept things slow, held her cool, and handled the road like a pro.

The second incident was really my fault. We came to a “T” intersection, and she asked me which way to go… I said ‘left,’ looked to the right, saw the road curve, and changed my mind. She didn’t know what to do, so she just let go of the wheel. I grabbed it, hauled us around the corner, fishtailed once, and counter-steered as we slowed to idle speed. My heart jumped a bit, and when I saw the kid, I realized that hers did too. I thought about saying “Okay, that’s enough for today,” but didn’t want her to end the day with a negative experience… so we kept going for another hour or so.

My kid’s growing up quickly… I remember teaching her to ride a bike as if it were yesterday.