Off-roading... in a civic?

So, Thanksgiving day 2007...

It all began on a ordinary day in November. I was in Richmond, Virginia, at my grandparents house, for a fantastic day of turkey, relatives, and many many more stories, foods, and adventures. Turns out that my apartment mate from senior year of college was also in town, and had no plans for Thanksgiving.

"Well, HEY!, why don't you spend it with me and my family?!" quoth I.

"Yes!" says she.

So, at 9:00am Thursday morning, I drive into University of Richmond to pick her up.

Enter the road race. Literally.

I start down my typical route through campus to Whitehurst, to pick her up... and upon rounding the bend by the chaplaincy, I encounter approximately 500 runners trekking along on their annual Turkey trot. Not a problem; I am good at 3-point turns. Don't ask how I've gained that skill. I turn around. I go the long way through campus (passing a table full of water cups and some very confused onlookers around mid-campus). Lo-and-behold, when I am less than a block away from Whitehurst, what do I see, but the same bunch of runners, running across the road in front of me. Hey, roadblock. I practice my 3-point turn again. All entrances to Tatiana are completely blocked off by hundreds of sweaty people.

I park in the dining hall parking lot, about half a mile from where I need to meet her, calling to re-arrange picking her up. Because of the large numbers of runners, we cannot go the normal way through that half-mile. So, for once, thank heavens for the drought. We walk through the now-mostly-dry over-flow drainage dam behind the commons. Slip. Oops. Slime. Yuck. We make it back to my car.... just in time to see the runners begin to stream by the entrance to the dining hall parking lot. TRAPPED! There is no way out.

We look to the right: the runners are coming by the hundreds.
We look to the left: there go the runners, taking up the entire road.
We look straight ahead: no-entrance, one-way street.

Best option: one-way street. When a few runners slow briefly, I gun it, breaking through their train, straight up the one-way street, wrong way right. We come to the end of the one way street, only to see the slower runners still running by our one and only exit route....

Slow motion, matrix style.... Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

The only other option is a parking lot to our left, bordering a soccer field and the Alumni center. At this point we have been driving around for about 30 minutes. On a very small campus. My frustration reaches a maximum.

"Are you game?" I ask.
Tatiana clutches her seat with both hands and nods.

As if in the movies, I slowly twist the steering wheel, and we leave the parking lot. We are now on the grass. Heading toward a large row of bushes. With a very small gap. Just Honda Civic size, as a matter of fact. We ease through the gap, less than an inch on both sides. We are now on the soccer field, bouncing through the ruts and turns and ditches. Off-roading... yeah.... A row of holly trees is our final obstacle. The gap there looks too narrow. Tatiana sucks in her breath, as if that will help make our obstacle less horrific. With less than an inch to spare, we clear the gap, bounce through a ditch which is far deeper than I estimated, and emerge on the main road... right in front of the yellow triangular sign stating:

"Slow for emerging traffic."

Bet they didn't know how aptly they positioned that sign, now did they?

And we nearly hit a very surprised jogger. Nearly.

And that is the story of Thanksgiving Day 2007, when I went off-roading in my Honda Civic.