In the past three days, I have tested Jeeper mightily. Sunday, I drove over Vermillion Pass (elevation 6050), the last half mile before the summit being a nasty stretch of frozen slush with ruts. It was one of those places that inculcates spontaneous prayer. Verbalized. And, bad, bad words.
Two days later, on my way to visit the Cedar Lake Cabin, GiGi (Google Girl) lured me into Cameron Meadows Road, “road” being a total misnomer. It was more of a series of driving tests — for myself and my vehicle. Not only did we have to do it once, uphill, we had to reverse it and test our mettle again, downhill. All I can say is — well, I said a lot of bad, bad words, both on the upslope and down, and, as I did on Sunday approaching Vermillion Pass, invoke the Spirit. Not sure if you should say “Fuck!” and “Please, God,” in the same paragraph, much less the same sentence, but in both cases, it seemed to help. I landed safely both times.
Thank you, God. Thank you, Jeeper.
The Compass performed well. So did I, compressed gluteus maximi and all.
The Vermillion Pass event was relatively straightforward, comparatively speaking. Just 7 minutes terror as I urged Jeeper and the Spirit to “Stay in the fucking ruts! Please, God!’ Tuesday was more of an extended nightmare, as GiGi kept promising me if I could just go a little farther, there would be a sharp left turn onto the much-desired Meadow Creek Road. She was lying!
OK. GiGi can’t lie, but she can certainly lead a guy astray, even with best intentions. I may forgive her. But it will take a while to trust her again.
Factors of near disaster:
I trusted GiGi to direct me from Ione, Washington, across the mountains between the Pend Oreille River and the Columbia River to Aladdin Road, where I could turn right and follow on to Cedar Lake. She gave me a route. I missed a turn because someone has removed a sign. GiGi dutifully found a new route without informing me of such.
About 30 minutes later on a continually diminishing road — including a section near completely gone to a giant washout — an unbridged stream crossing and a section that coincided with a powerline road (not known for their attention to achievable grades), I came upon what Gigi led me to believe was a legit Forest Road that would lead me to the intersection described above. It did not.
But it did lead me to a logging project where the road was reduced to frozen ruts about as deep as Jeeper could handle without shining up the oil pan, and a couple that were slightly deeper. The clinching of gluteus maximus increased in direction proportion to the grip on the steering wheel.
At one point, I said aloud, “Just gun it,” and I did, and Jeeper slammed on through, only to be stalled 100 yard later by an immovable tree across the road. There were many, many bad, bad words said at that point. I will never travel without a Silky Katana Boy again.
That may have been for the best. Who know what challenges lay beyond; how deep the semi-frozen, slush-filled ruts would be; how many more trees there would be to remove; what other monsters be there.
I returned to Ione. And, with Gigi’s help — though she seemed damned reluctant — I figured out how and where to get on the proper road, after which I practically flew across the hills to Aladdin road (30 miles per hour seems like jet speed after spending an hour driving less than ten miles per hour to prevent ripping out Jeeper’s transmission in “the middle of fucking nowhere,” as I accused Gigi several times of leading me into.
All’s well that ends well. At least that’s what Mr. Shakespeare seems to think. And, it all ended well today, thanks to Jeeper’s abilities — and mine. I have to admit, I seem to be able to pray, cuss and navigate myself out of these sorts of situations fairly well. I just wish Gigi wouldn’t get me into them quite as often.
Something I’ve concluded, though. Jeeper is a keeper.
