“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller

Remember the scene in The Office when Michael Scott and Dwight Shrute follow GPS right into a lake?  Well, surprise!  That really happens.  I spent a Saturday with my buddy Bob Fletcher scouting around the Salton Sea, looking for areas of interest and good photo opportunities.  Later, the plan was to hang out a bit with a photo group doing some night-time fire and pyrotechnic work.  Just for fun, and to see if something interesting developed.

Best laid plans…  turns out, one of the photo group people had followed his GPS down a very wrong road and was stuck in some mud.  We had almost literally just pulled up, but having a full-size truck and best equipped to deal with mud, Bob and I went to have a look.  So, there’s stuck in the mud, and then there’s stuck in the mud.  Guess which the new guy was??  And not just stuck in the mud, but a half a mile down mud-road, tried to turn around, front end absolutely buried and almost in the water stuck in the mud.

Now, my two-wheel drive, Dodge Ram 2500 diesel – with non-aggressive, street tread tires – weighs 7000 pounds, plus I have at least another 500 pounds of gear on board.  (5th wheel hitch, sizable generator, tools, etc…)  Add another 100-150 lbs. in photography equipment, and then passengers and canine sidekick and you get a not really that mud friendly total.  On the other hand, if we didn’t try to get this guy out, he wasn’t getting out, and Bob, who does have a lot of experience getting stuck people out, was – mostly – sure we’d be alright.  So in we went.

Skipping a blow by blow of the next two-ish hours, a bullet point of the “highlights” looks a little like this:

• Turns out, we don’t have a pull strap, (I do now-late to the party) and only a medium heavy rope.
• We need to drive the truck past him to try and pull him out straight, (the vehicle rear is facing the far side) but pulling him straight out does not work. He’s just sucked into the mud too deep and the truck can’t get enough traction without getting stuck myself or breaking the rope.
• After much discussion, we decide to attempt to pull his rear end all the way back across the road so it’s facing the other way and try to work it out from that direction.
• 20-30 “mini” pulls, (don’t want to break the rope, and trying to avoid digging the truck rear wheels in) moves the car a little each time, (only breaking the rope once) and we actually get the car pulled enough facing the other way, (and out of the mud enough) that Bob is able to work the car out the rest of the way, and we did it!
• The car is free from the mud.
• But by now it’s almost pitch dark.
• And also, the mosquitoes have arrived.  In force.  A lot of mosquitoes.  Like mosquito China.
• So now, we just need to drive two vehicles – backward – a half a mile on a really narrow, slightly less muddy path, through mud pits and traps on the left and full on water on the right. In the dark. While being eaten alive by thousands of mosquitoes.  Sure, it sounds easy when you say it that way…
• Inspired flashlight work, shouted directions, fits and starts, a few harrowing close calls, (once, at an orientation stop, I stepped out of my truck into half a foot of mud soup.  If my truck had  been one foot to the left it might still be there) Finally, we see the gate at the head of the road… and then we’re past it.  We are out.  Holy crap.

All that remained was the aftermath. (and future stories)  The truck was caked in mud pretty much everywhere, and the tires were throwing mud off for miles.  I found mud inside the engine compartment and up in the bed.  I understand the car front end and undercarriage was so packed with mud that it wouldn’t even hit 50mph and had to be power washed that night to make it home.  I was still finding mosquitoes in my truck 2 days later.  A $35 hand wash and I was almost back to normal.  There are still a few areas on the inside need a little buffing out, and I collected a few new scratches on my paint, but Bob assured me that I learned things about my truck and getting people out of mud.  And I did, I learned we were really, really, really lucky to get out of there, and next time we’re taking Bob’s truck.

But I did get a few good images out of the day, so I got that going for me.  All in all… a good day.