Personal Narrative: Gun Lake

It all began during the summer of 2015. I had just taken my beat- up fossil of a john- boat off of Gun Lake to fish in a different lake, and were going to put it back on Gun Lake at my grandparent’s house. After rinsing the multitude of worm guts and dirt out of it, we were going to put it back into the lake. My grandparent’s neighbor, Hal, got the chance to come along with me. We vaulted into what we called the “Rhino”, a quad equipped with a driver’s and passenger’s seat. My boat was sitting on an old, rusty utility trailer outfitted with dirt- caked carpeted boards sitting on the edges of the trailer, as to not scratch anything. With the wind in our hair, we sailed down the private road until we reached one of the perks of living …show more content…
It was nestled between reeds and lily pads, with a small, rocky bottom. It smelled of swamp, engine exhaust, and the possibility of good times. Before backing the trailer into the lake, we made sure everything we needed was in there; life jackets, lanyard, etc. After taking all the ropes off the boat, except one to keep the boat from floating away, I backed the trailer into the lake. After being satisfied that the trailer was far enough into the lake, I yanked the emergency brake up and hopped out. I did this because many off- road vehicles like this don’t have a “park” shift, only a “neutral” position. In the back of my mind I remembered that the emergency brake did not work that well but I didn't think much about it at the time. I went back to the trailer and jumped into the water on top of the trailer and started to unhook the rope off the boat. As I was unhooking the rope, all of a sudden the Rhino started barreling backwards into the water! There was no stopping it! I quickly jumped into the bed of the Rhino to avoid being ran over. Then, I lept off the trailer and into the water next to the Rhino where I then, dodging the roll cage, Dukes of Hazzard style jumped into the cab and slammed my foot as hard as I could on the brake. After catching my breath and giving my dragster- fast heart time to slow down, I got out to access the …show more content…
Luckily the engine was in the front of the Rhino. Because the trailer was so far down, the rope I had not finished unknotting that was hooked near the front of the trailer was suspending the back end of the boat into the air. At first I tried to start the Rhino, which did successfully start, with a loud bubbling sound coming from the exhaust pipe underwater. But, the Rhino would not move. It was sinking into the mud and stones with every revolution of its tires. Even four wheel drive would not pull the Rhino out. So, I got back into the brown, muddy water to unhook the trailer. To my luck, I had put the chains on despite only having to travel 100 yards down the road. While cursing myself for doing something stupid like that, I was able to get the rusty chains unhooked at the expense of a newly mud and water soaked shirt and shorts. But it still wouldn't work. The Rhino couldn’t find the right grip to pull itself out of the lake. So Hal ran up to his house and started his quad up. After pulling out the built in winch from the Rhino we hooked the other end to the quad. While both pulling at the same time, with the help of a mere 2000 pound load capacity winch, we were able to get the Rhino successfully out. After that I used the one to pull out the trailer. After putting my boat back on its left and the cleaning all the mud dirt and grime off of the