REAL MUD!

[jbjeeps]

I am not a hardcore, off-road, 4 wheelin’, rock climbin’, dude. I prefer to do my Jeeping on gravel roads and just enjoy the ride. But, occasionally, usually by mistake, I get into something a little more exciting. That’s what happened this afternoon.

I had driven the A1 on the pavement over to the corral a few miles away to feed two horses being kept separate from the rest of the herd. I decided to take one of the field roads back to the house. I got to the bottom of a steep, sharp right hander that goes up quickly along the edge of a small draw. Not really big enough to be called a canyon, the draw was still deep and steep enough that if the Jeep and I went down into it, the result would not be good. Most of the road was out of view. I shifted down into first gear and started up the hill. As I came around the turn, I saw it. Mud. Not your garden variety mud. This was REAL MUD. Churned-up-dusty-field-road-turned-slick-and-gooey-by-a-12-hour-set-of-irrigation-line MUD. I didn’t know they’d been watering there! The top half of the hill was covered with it.

I was in two-wheel drive.

I nailed the gas and started sawing the wheel as the back end of the Jeep swung from side to side. I was doing my best impersonation of someone who was really good at this. Things were going pretty well. That lasted for about 5 seconds.

Call it impossible conditions, call it fate, call it pilot error, but I was suddenly stopped, sideways, at a steep angle, in the middle of the road. The back end of the Jeep was facing the draw and the front tires had rolled about a foot into our son-in-law’s freshly watered barley.

I got out, locked the hubs, got back in, shifted in the transfer case and put it in low-range. I backed a little closer to the edge of the draw to find some dry ground, hit the gas and slowly crawled up the rest of the hill.

I stopped at the top and looked back, grateful that I hadn’t gone farther out into the grain, and wasn’t upside down in the bottom of the draw.

Even though the rest of the ride home was flat and dry, I kept it in low range and 4 wheel drive, just to enjoy the moment!