Part of our brand new Jeep Gladiator
About a week ago, Clyde asked me if I was ready to “go and get stuck.” I had to clarify, what in the world did he mean by that? He basically said, ready to back up to Tiller and get stuck? I questioned, you mean go back up to that spot where we were stuck for three days and two nights? Ooooooh HELL NO! I told him I didn’t even think that was funny.
So you know what happened next, he found this truck that he loved and bought it. The truck comes with a 6 speed on the floor manual transmission. He had a lot of trouble getting into first gear the first night we had it. He was stalling the truck a lot. But, you know everyone one of those is different, each one has a different feeling clutches. I’ve driven a few, he’s driven 3 speeds, 4 speeds, 6 speeds, and 12 speeds. But it’s been a while for him.
Anyway, the next day, he asks me if I want to go out with him while he practices with the truck to get ready for driving up to Portland and picking up our new trailer. I say sure. I did not think to ask where we were going.
First he stopped for a burger. Well he lives at fast food joints so that’s no surprise. Then after that we take off, and I’m realizing that we are nearly to Days Creek, about 15 miles from home. Problem is that if we are driving past Days Creek, then we are either headed to Tiller or Shady Cove. So, I flat out ask him, are we going to Tiller? Yup, was the answer.
He didn’t think there would be any snow up there. Which is funny considering our experience. There were maybe 6 inches that afternoon we got stuck, and it was all right there where we got stuck. We were on a donut, and The car got high centered. We tried everything we knew to try and stayed stuck for three days. When we left the car behind, we left it until the snow cleared out, a few days after we left.
We got up to South Umpqua Falls and there was no snow, just lots of rain, so I was feeling better. The river was way, way up. The bathroom roof leaked at the falls. And a mouse had crawled over the toilet paper and pooped on it. Eeeeks!!! But we were doing fine and he was driving great. He has been seeing better in recent days.
We kept going as it was when we went out those years ago and got stuck on the mountain, we were headed to Roseburg the back way. Well, we never got to Roseburg. We started climbing on the road, and soon the rain was mixed with snow. At first, it was just little patches of snow. Then we had slush on the road, and soon the slush was pure snow. Unreal. I knew we were high in elevation when I saw the Rhododendron flower plants.
We went from about 2 inches of snow on the road to about four. The snow turned from a wet affair to big, dry snowflakes. Next I looked, I realized the snow was up to 4–5 inches of snow, and the jeep was slowing down.
The jeep doesn’t go into four-wheel drive like the old 1997 model did. We had not read the vehicle manual. First we tried the sway bar button to see if it would stop the fishtailing–as I looked down and saw about 10 inches of snow on the road.
Eventually he got it into four-wheel drive, but by now we probably had a foot of untouched snow in front of us on the road. He decided to turn us around and go back the way we came in. Roseburg was still a good 38 or so miles away, in this direction.
Probably at least 45 miles just to get to Tiller. So, we turned around and headed to Tiller. But before he got turned around, he backed into the ditch, which one could not see due to the snow. So, he made something smell like… well, melting something. I was clutching onto the grab bars for dear life, looking at the jeep, wondering if it would save our life. Thinking about how he took the seat covers off the seats in the Subaru cause my feet wouldn’t get warm. He took the covers off like bags, and he put his feet in with my feet to warm mine up, and it worked. This new truck has leather seats….. I cringed when I thought of cutting those things up.
The cab is a four door though so we had just as much room as we had in the car at least, and we’d brought Jake and Beau so they would help keep us warm too.
We saw this on the way home.
