As the saying goes, life gets in the way while you’re making other plans.
We share with you an unexpected adventure that happened last weekend. Some may even refer to it as a cautionary tale.
This one involved two boomers in a yellow 2005 Wrangler TJ.
We were on the way to look at some alphabet ghost towns along Route 66. The day started off normal enough.
Happy wanderers on another desert coddiwomple.
We packed up and hit the road from La Quinta at 7 a.m. By the time we were in Wonder Valley a couple of hours later, we had this bright idea to divert off the road near the painted rocks and take a shortcut through the desert on a gas pipeline road.
We had last offroaded it in 2018 and remembered that the road popped out on Route 66 near Archer. We recalled the road had been fairly flat with hard packed sand.
Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men.
Well, nothing in the desert stays quite the way we remember it, due to winds, signage, landmarks and other factors, and about at the road’s midpoint we encountered some deep sandy areas.
We followed recent tire tracks ahead of us and figured if they could do it, so could we.
Nature was about to serve us a big slice of humble pie.
Normally this kind of challenge is not too much of a concern since we have a 4X4 Jeep and are experienced offroaders.
It was at this precise moment when we got stuck coming out of deep soft sand on the other side of a wash on a steep hill.
That sand captured us like a graboid and wouldn’t let go.
We always remind people the desert is not your friend and can have deadly consequences. The memory of a pretty nice drive can suddenly disappear like a spent dust devil.
Today the desert decided to give us a swift kick in the groin.
See this location pin? Don’t go there.
First off, we had problems with our off-road sand rails. We aired down our tires to no avail, but by then we were pretty dug in.
Some have claimed if sand rails help then you weren’t really stuck. The desert wasn’t punking us.
We attempted to dig ourselves out with a latrine shovel. As soon as we dug the hole, it filled back in. Alrighty then.
What’s behind door number three, Monty Hall?
We attempted to winch ourselves out with whatever was handy. Unfortunately, there were no boulders. Creosote bushes, despite their deep roots and earthy scent, make pretty lousy anchors.
We put piles of small rocks under the tires. Nope.
And the fine sand was too soft for our jack.
That’s when I noticed the other tracks in the sand had abruptly ended before the wash. It looked like they turned around at the wash and retreated.
At least’s that’s our story and we’re sticking to it.
Footprints in the sand that weren’t ours revealed someone had likely scouted the wash before making a decision. Never underestimate your skill level or vehicle.
It was time to reimagine our game plan.
The irony dawned on us that we were really stuck and needed to pull out the big guns. We figured we were about three miles as the crow flies from a main road, but abandoning one’s vehicle is never a good option.
Suddenly to our delight, we discovered we had cellphone service despite our remote location. This is rarely the case.
One bar?
We seized it like a crow grabs a French fry.
We decided to swallow our pride and to call our friends over at Amboy on Route 66 and see if they could send out the cavalry while we circled the wagons.
Our call was forwarded to their town manager, Kenneth Large, in 29 Palms but he said he would contact his son in law, Joshua Timm, a realtor in Joshua Tree who had rescued people in the desert before with his Jeep.
We dropped a pin of our location to Josh’s phone and he was on his way! And just like that, Josh and Kenneth became our new favorite heroes.
The silver lining?
The weather was beautiful and a perfect temperature. We had plenty of water, ice tea, fruit and snacks. We were experiencing no life-threatening emergency.
Anyway, the Jeep provided shade, the sun provided Vitamin D3, and the blowing sand provided skin exfoliation highly sought at the poshest of spas.
Life was like a bowl of Medjool dates. Okay, so I’m getting carried away a little.
Thankfully, it wasn’t due to heat-induced delirium. Somebody amazing was coming to rescue us, and we would survive to see another day.
We even joked that we were enjoying plenty of the Silence and the Sun, the title of one of our favorite books by Joe de Kehoe about the alphabet towns of Route 66.
The funny thing is John has been conducting research about a fellow who in 1900 went on a 60 mile hike across the desert to see his sick child from the mine he worked at, to his home in Amboy.
Although the wanna-be miner was familiar with the route, he somehow took a wrong turn and ended up dying of thirst. They found his bleached bones in the desert years later.
I told John we shouldn’t take our misfortune as a reenactment.
As Monty Python once exclaimed, “I’m not dead yet!”
Not today, Satan. Not today.
Later, a friend advised we could’ve buried our spare tire and winched the Jeep to it to pull ourselves out.
Another friend suggested if it happened the same way we should dig out some of the sand in front of the passenger side rear wheel, enough to wedge the sand rail into the rear tire.
The tire will grip it, and the weight and coverage of the tire will prevent the rail from slipping out like ours did.
Well, duh. We simply had not dug deep enough.
We will certainly try both techniques in the future if needed.
Rescued!!!! Thank you Josh and fam!!
The calvary arrived! Short story long, Josh came all the way from Joshua Tree with his three sweet kids in his beautiful Jeep, blew right up the sandy hill past us like a champ and winched us out in what seemed like a minute or less, to a cacophony of rowdy cheers.Â
We enjoyed some camaraderie together and a package of Girl Scout Lemonades we had with us. We even ducked each other in a show of Jeep solidarity.
Josh ended up following us the rest of the way out since we didn’t know the condition of the remaining dirt road between us and Route 66.
It turned into another grand adventure that eventually took us down a salt paved road that turned our Jeeps white until we finally found Amboy Road.
Josh said he likes helping offroaders who may find themselves in similar jams. If you are near Joshua Tree, Twentynine Palms or Amboy, give him a call at 760-490-7759.
Everyone had a blast, including the kids, and we took some good photos for a future story about how salt is processed from Bristol dry lake.
Mojave, why so salty? Us too, desert. Us too.
Some unexpected writing topics just fall into your lap. Like this one.
The desert taught us a lot that day. Best of all, we met a new friend.
We definitely hope we can get together again soon with Josh for more desert adventures. Next time though, let’s just skip the getting stuck in the sand thingy.
Been there, done that.
Recommended Resources
Libby’s Real Estate https://www.libbysrealty.com
