Stranded in the Mojave

A hank of hair blows into my eye, escaping from my ponytail. A scattering of dust whips off a cracked wooden fence post into my other eye. Momentarily blinded by this double ocular attack, I stop to get my bearings. "This Mojave wind is messing with me," I complain to Wren.

I take a micro-sip from my canteen, wanting to conserve as much water as possible. It's a dry, warm day in early June, and we're not sure what the day holds for us. It certainly hadn't been going as planned. Wren pulls off her bucket hat and ties a faded navy blue bandana around her head. "What do you think, about six miles?" she asks, resigned to a hike in the early afternoon sun.

"About that," I guess, rubbing some sunscreen on my nose and arms as we head south-southeast, following our tire tracks back to civilization.

We had set out the previous morning, two archaeology students touring sites around Barstow, California, in the oft-underestimated Mojave Desert. We had camped at Calico Ghost Town the night before, and had made an early start to find a petroglyph site. The directions we had were a little bit sketchy, but we had been told that the road was good and we couldn't miss the turn-off. We'd been chatting away. Wren was taking a turn driving, and I started realizing that the path had transformed from a road that was good to a road that was increasingly sandy. This couldn't have been right.

"Hey Wren, this seems wrong. Find a wide spot and make a u-turn, without stopping."

"Huh?" She immediately stopped.

And just like that, we were stuck. 'Don't stop in the sand if you don't have 4 wheel drive' is a good rule to remember. Oops. We got out and assessed the situation.

"Get the firewood," she suggested, "put it in front of the wheels."

Oops again. Last night I had been too efficient with the hatchet. I had chopped the rest of the wood into kindling, counting on getting more before the next campfire. The small pieces were worthless for the task at hand. We kept trying, and with every attempt, the wheels sank deeper. Before the axle rested completely on the ground, the axle of my dad's prized Suburban which he agreed to let me borrow as it's a great camping vehicle, we decide our best bet was to walk back and seek help.

So here we are. Day packs filled with ten essentials, and with all of the water we can carry, we start walking to find help. "We have triple A, but I don't know if they come on dirt roads," I speculate, "My dad's not going to like this at all."

Our shins start to hurt from walking in the sand, although now we're definitely getting back to the better dirt road. We walk in silence for awhile, willing ourselves to not be thirsty.

"What's that?" Wren asks, squinting into the distance. "I think it's some kind of car!"

We watch a plume of sandy dust spurting across the horizon behind a slow-moving vehicle that seems to be coming towards us on the road that we are walking along. "Wait, what? Look at that, is it full of people, or what?" Wren nervously asks.

As it approaches, it looks like a couple of folks in the truck and several more in the bed. Wren's imagination shifts into overdrive. "Damn! What if it's a truckload of migrants? Do you think they'll rob us? Rape us? Leave our desiccated bodies in the sand so our families will never know what happened to us? Should we run? There's nowhere to hide! Damn it, Joshua trees don't supply much in the way of cover!"

The truck slows down in its approach. I'm sure they're wondering what we're doing out here. It stops, and a woman climbs out of the passenger seat. "Are you ok?" she asks. We hear giggles and whines from the truck bed. It's three young kids and about eight bouncy black and white puppies. We tell her our story and our names.

"Hop in, we'll take you home, and see if Jim can get you out."

Wren squeezes in front with them, Patty and her husband Chuck. I opt for the back, I'm a sucker for puppies. The kids babble our their names along with those of the puppies, and I'm not sure who is who, other than the ubiquitous Spot. There's nothing like a batch of laughing kids and squiggly puppies to help me forget my troubles. Plus the huge sense of relief at finding not only a ride, but a potential solution to our problem.

On arriving at their house, Chuck gives Jim a call and sure enough, Jim's willing to help. He'll come around in about an hour, then he'll rescue the damsels in distress and dad's Suburban. Patty serves up hot dogs, chips, and brownies. She's happy to have some girls to talk to while Chuck and the kids play basketball in the driveway. The exhausted puppies sleep in a heap in the shade beside the truck.

We hear the powerful motor before we see the huge black Ford 4x4 with oversize tires drive up. Jim has a broad smile, crooked teeth, a beery aroma, and a filthy denim vest with a Semper Fi patch sewn over his heart. Patty grabs two gallon water jugs, then scoffs at our offer of $20 for their troubles. Not much, I know, but we hadn't counted on needing much cash on this trip.

"Honey, just be sure to help somebody out sometime," she says in a motherly voice. That we will do, we promise.

Chuck and Jim chat a bit while we gather up our stuff. "Now, we know about where your vehicle is. Jim should be able to get you out, then he'll lead you to Owl Canyon Campground," Chuck explains. "It's pretty undeveloped but you'll do fine. It will be about dark by the time you get there."

"Sounds good to us," Wren answers, glad to have a plan.

She gets in the truck first, taking the middle of the bench seat. Before long, we spot the Suburban mired in the sand. Jim hops out to assess the situation. "I see you tried to use your wood here. When you're stuck in the sand, it's a good idea to let a little air out of your tires. The extra surface area of the rubber on the sand will give you more grip," he volunteers.

Jim presses the valve stem and air hisses out. He's impressed that I know the vehicle has a limited slip differential. He lines up his truck, pulls the cable from the winch and secures it under the front axle, and tells us to stand back. Just like that, he plucks it right out of the pit we made, makes a wide loop, and gets it turned around, back on track. We dance around hooting like fools as he unhooks the winch.

"Why don't you drive with me," he asks Wren, so she hops in. I follow them, so pleased that I won't have to tell my dad that I abandoned his Suburban in the Mojave.

It's dusk as we pull into the empty campground. We pick the spot with a few logs of firewood stacked by the fire ring, thoughtfully left by the campsite's last occupant. We'd forgotten that we needed a bit more wood. We asked Jim if he'd eaten anything. We had some instant noodle soup cups and sourdough rolls to share, if he wanted to wait for us to get a fire going.

"Got any beers?" he asks, a hopeful tinge in his voice.

"Nope. How about a warm Diet Coke?"

Jim declines, sits on a log and attempts small talk as we work on the fire. It seems like he's flirting with Wren, and she's having none of it. Maybe because he's about as old as her grandfather. Seeing that he's getting nowhere with his suave and debonair demeanor, he shifts into mentoring mode.

"We came into the campground from the west, so tomorrow morning, head east, that's the closer way. When you get to the paved road, drive slowly, and air up those tires at the gas station first thing," Jim instructs. We promise to do just that.

We pull out the noodles in styrofoam, offering him one as we set the water on to boil. With a wistful sigh, he declines, and heads for his truck. We offer him $20, he smiles and shakes his head, no. "Save it for next time. If you come through Hinkley again, stop at Reilly's Pub and buy me a beer."

Hopping into his truck, he smiles and waves and heads into the fast-falling darkness. We relax as the adrenaline finally subsides, the tiredness descends, and giddiness sets in. We laugh about our rescuer's optimism, as if we'd want his sweaty old face in ours. We laugh at his assumptions, as we are not yet old enough to buy beer.

We pour the hot water on the noodles, sit on the log and wax poetic about potential scenarios we may have faced, like rattlesnake bites and heatstroke. We absorb the calmness and serenity of the desert at night.

"It's so quiet here. Isolated. And so dry," I muse. "I can feel my lips chapping as I speak."

A pensive Wren asks, "if we didn't make it out today, and if someday they found our bleached bones, I wonder if there would be enough of our DNA on file somewhere for them to identify us?"

We stare at the night sky and spot a shooting star. We enjoy the smell of the burning wood, the salty taste of the noodles, and the coolness that descends on the desert after dark. A breeze kicks up, sending fine dust into our faces and a pair of embers skittering heavenward.

"Would you believe it, my high school graduation class considered "Dust in the Wind" to be an appropriate class song?"

"Ha!" Wren chimed. "Now that we've survived the Mojave, we have to have something more substantial than a Kansas song."

We sit, quietly contemplating our exhausting day. Our luck. Our finiteness.

An owl hoots, perched in a nearby cottonwood tree. Finishing my noodles, I find myself starting to doze off. Then Wren's voice pierces the still evening.

"Engulfed in the desert's parched silence, I was nothing but another grain of sand in the wind."