Shame On Me

You know the saying "Fool me once, shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me!"? Well, we enacted that saying last night in a not-very-ideal location.

It went like this.

We're on our way to Utah right now. We were staying in Sacramento Wednesday night and planned to make it to the Grand Canyon by Friday, splitting up the 12-13 hours of driving by camping in the Mojave desert. We didn't have a detailed map on hand of the Mojave, but we had a road map and a general idea of where to camp based on the nps.gov website. There are a few car campsites for $12 but the website also tempts you with free roadside camping on any dirt road in the park, at least 1/4 mile from any paved roads. I should also mention that 4-wheel drive being necessary was not exactly highlighted on their camping page either.

We arrived in the park around sunset and we wanted to find a spot to camp before it got too dark. First dirt road we came too we took. As soon as my truck pulled off the pavement I knew something bad was going to happen. It was soft, slow sand (definitely not what I would call dirt) and I didn't dare stop. We kept bouncing along until I saw an opening to turn and I whipped around. There were definitely some scary moments, but we eventually made it back onto the pavement. Barely. Whew! Close call.

So we kept going further down the paved road looking for a more substantial side road this time. A mile or two later we see a little hyundai looking thing parked just off the road (definitely not past 1/4 mile as supposedly required by the nps). Mary suggested we do the same and stick close to the road. I agreed (if a hyundai can do, then my truck sure can) and soon enough we were on another small dirt road. Fool me twice! I could feel the tires spinning and losing traction, so naturally I did the same thing as last time. I didn't stop. I figured at some point the dirt road would reconnect with the pavement and I had good reason to since the dirt road we were on paralleled the pavement, almost like it was the shoulder. The only problem was that I was wrong. The sand started slowely descending away from the level of the main road, until it was more like a ditch than a shoulder. Then, a few moments later, I was officially stuck. Shame on me.

We had roadside assitance, but we still tried to free the truck ourselves before giving in. Two hours went by with no luck (we'd move a few feet and then hit a soft spot again and a tire would dig in) so we gave in and called Progressive. Within an hour they had someone come and winch me out of the ditch. Really great guy. When we were filling out the paperwork afterwards, he asked for my mileage. 61616.1! Crazy huh? I'm pretty sure that's why we got stuck, stupid odometer.