Two weeks ago, I loaded the dogs up and headed for one of my favorite fishing spots. It's all back desert dirt roads. I fish down there all the time in winter, and never gave it a thought. It gets sketchy in the spring, when the clay road turns to slop. I turn off the county dirt road onto the secondary road and start down the steep hill. I instantly knew I had screwed up. It was going to be hard making it up that steep stretch. The snow was loose and deep, making it difficult to even go downhill. I continued on, as that was the worst stretch. About halfway down I encountered a deep snow drift. Managed to plow through it, but around the next bend there were snowdrifts as far as I could see. Shit! Turning around on that narrow road with my big truck was problematic, but I managed. I made it out to the last steep section and couldn't quite make it to the top, no matter how much of a run I got. This was going to be a long walk. I checked my phone, and was shocked to see I had one bar of service. There's never any service way out there! I texted my wife my dilemma, and had her come pick me and the dogs up. I figured I'd grab a set of chains and be fine. Except nowhere in town had any. So I grabbed some large zip ties. I thought they would work in a pinch. I only needed another fifty yards to get over the hill onto the plowed county road. The zip ties probably would have worked, except by then it was dark, and the temperature had dropped to the low twenties. The zip ties were too brittle in the cold. They'd break before I could even get them on. I ended up having to leave my truck out in the middle of nowhere overnight. My FIL dug some old chains out, which we thought were going to be too small, so I brought some tie wire. Turned out the chains fit, and I was able to drive right out the next morning. All that, and I never even made it to the river.
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