The Road To Hell

After driving on a passable gravel road on the Red Gulch/Alkali National Scenic Country Backway, we began to encounter very rough roads with stones that became larger and larger. Though some may question why I didn't turn around, those reasons might be:

1. There was a very large, looming rainstorm that had appeared behind us and we might have encountered a different type of problem - sliding off the road and/or getting stuck;
2. There was virtually no way to have been able to turn around due to the amount of rocks on this one-lane road;
3. We were about 6 miles from the highway to which this backway would end;
4. We already had about 2 hours invested in time to get to this point; and
5. I just felt sure that it would get better when we got through this long stretch of bad roads.

This is a picture of a good part of the "bad road". This is before the boulders became larger. The terrain got so bad, the car drug on the tops of some of the rock. Several times I had to back up a short distance just to figure out which rocks to attempt to drive over. This is when the windstorm began which was preceding the rainstorm. It got so bad we couldn't even see the "road". I finally stopped the car and asked Joe to please say a prayer for us, he did and the wind stopping blowing almost immediately. The wind had blown the sand/dirt so that it had started drifting like snow.
Bad... Badder...
It was during this time, that we found out that we had a phone signal. How? Out here in the middle of nowhere? I managed to call Trina, told her where we were and if I hadn't called her by an appointed time that evening, she needed to come looking for us. And I was serious! I wasn't afraid that we couldn't make it out there. We had plenty of water, food, blankets, a way to make a fire, etc. (Remember I have a truck full of stuff). I just didn't want to be stuck in the sand waiting for someone to come along. After all, we'd seen so many people in the two hours. Hmmm, a total of none peoples!
Then it became beautiful again. No more boulder roads, no more windswept roads. Then we saw this mountain with what appeared to be the road rising up to meet us. It looked innocent enough, but we were soon fooled. As soon as we hit a section of this road, we hit nothing but deep red, fine sand similar to what you'd see on the beach. Unfortunately, this road was also laden with curves with steep sides and there was no way to stop. If you stopped, the car would die and would be stuck in the sand. This was not fun in any shape, form or fashion and I only knew that I couldn't let off of the accelerator and just had to watch what I was doing.
Obviously we made it out since I'm here to write about it. But I can promise you this. I will never, ever go here again!

503 Miles - 8/22/09

This particular "Making Memories" day was awful! On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the best, it was probably a 5! The only thing that salvaged it was most likely the prayer we had before we left and the one that we had to have halfway through it before things got worse. And, you know the old saying about "God looks after fools and children"?, well, that probably helped out alot too.

What was so bad? In a nutshell:

• I swallowed a flippin bug while putting things in the car and though I spit it out, it felt like it was still lodged in my throat and this was BeFORe we left our street;


• Joe and I had stupid, silly disagreements throughout the day;


• We got stuck on a "scenic country backway" that became the road from hell (more on that in another blog);


• I ripped out some plastic piece of my front bumper when attempting to turn around on a very narrow dirt road and managed to pull out a portion of the back bumper the same way. I've found another use for duct tape people! It ain't pretty, but it's holding everything together for the time being. I'll plan on having that taken care of when I take my car to the shop to have the hood repaired from where the horse we met on an earlier "Making Memories" day tried to eat my hood paint and left teeth marks. (Try explaining that one to your insurance agent!);


• A container of water. that we had frozen, sprung a leak in our Igloo lunch bag and created a small pond in the bottom. Luckily our sandwiches and goodies didn't get wet. Then Joe decided to put it back in the bag without my knowledge. When I opened it again to take out the remaining sandwiches - there was another small pond. When questioned, he said "I put it in upside down since the hole was in the bottom". (Ever hear about overhead items shifting during flight? Same principle when riding down bumpy roads);


• We paid $2.69 a gallon for gas in a small town to insure we'd have enough to get home after all, the last thing we needed was to run out of gas out here. No one would find you for days!;


• My ankles are swelled, I'm sweaty and most likely stink and am covered with a fine dusting of red sand; and lastly since I do want to go get a shower and go to bed...


• It was as though the day would never end as we arrived at home aGAin after dark and some 13+ hours later.

Wait!!! Wait!!! There is another good thing that happened today which was that I passed three Wyoming State Troopers and not one stopped me. That's great news considering I was stopped the last two weekends for not having my front license plate attached and I received a speeding citation last month. (Speaking of duct tape, I even tried, though temporarily, duct taping my front license plate to the front of my car so I wouldn't get into trouble today. I decided against that though and opted for sticking it in my front windshield. You see, my car is not equipped to handle a front license plate and I can't seem to find anyone willing to attach it. They don't want to accept responsibility in case it messes up the front bumper. And, I've gone for 8 months without any problems until the last two weekends.) I seem to be accumulating a nice stack of blue citations and trooper business cards. (I've found that feigned ignorance of Wyoming automobile laws and a thick southern accent have served me well thus far. But I don't speed over the posted 75 mph now and I did attach my license plate to my car tonight upon our return using those "zip ties" until someone can do it more professionally.

I'm sure there is a lot of great things that did transpire this date, but I'll just have to go to bed and think on them and I'm sure that once I review my pics, then I'll start smiling and thinking it couldn't have been that bad, right? So, it's off to the shower (waa hoo) especially since it's already 12:18 A.M.!!! and I am already imagining how great my sleep will be zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!