The Other Crater Lake

No one has ever been to the NRTI Range without experiencing the thrill ride, or walk, that are Hocking College's range roads.  Grounds saw fit to sort-of grade the road to the parking lot, but apparently any type of surfacing, like gravel, is considered a luxury, which means that whenever it snows or rains it has the coefficient of friction of dish detergent.  But they just couldn't seem to make the 2 right turns off the parking lot that would have set them on the section leading past the "comfort stations" to the Tarp of Knowledge and Bill's Country Bunker, leaving that section resembling early 80's Beirut.

No student during a night shoot could ever forget trying to navigate around or through the pit traps laying in wait - This one actually has tides, and when you stand on one side and yell across to the other, there's an echo.  If you fall in and try to get out too fast, you'll get the bends.

It also ate the Honda of Justice.  Apparently the pit sunk a little more since the last time I was at the range.  I'm not sure how deep it is, but it is slightly deeper than whatever the ground clearance of my truck was.

Fortunately, the airbags didn't go off, but I could have used those collapsing seats they put in helicopters to protect the crew when they pancake in.  I'm now about 3/4 inch shorter than I was before splashdown.

I later used a Flex-Cuff to strap up the air dam as a temporary repair.

The people at Doctor's ER were great.  They really seemed to appreciate that I wasn't drunk or there for gonorrhea shots.  A couple months of physical therapy and cervical traction, and I'll be as good as new, or at least as good as i was at 5:25 Thursday, right before this happened.

It goes without saying that the Little College That Cares thinks that I should pay for all this myself, what with me having the audacity to drive my own truck out to a college facility to provide training to a student and expecting something outrageous like a passable roadway.  I'll probably be billed for any water that splashed out.