We were leaving Bandelier National Park in northern New Mexico on our way to Tuba City, Arizona. It was a spring day with bright sunshine and a comfortable temperature. I was driving the Dodge Neon, a compact four door sedan, we had rented in Albuquerque. Our intent was to drive northwest and stop in Tuba City for some Navajo fry bread before continuing on to the Grand Canyon. It was a good plan.
We decided to take a less populated route. I know this sounds a little oxymoronic since there are very few heavily populated routes in New Mexico. What I really mean is a secondary road just a bit off the beaten path. It sounded like a good idea at the time.
The road we had chosen quickly changed from gravel to more dirt than gravel. This wasn’t a reason for alarm; I had grown up driving on the red dirt roads of the piedmont area of South Carolina. We did begin to get concerned when the road turned into a muddy path through the trees. Perhaps one indicator of things to come was the four-wheel-drive pick-up truck we passed abandoned in a ditch.
I did not realize that the winter snows were melting in the mountains, and everything was wet. I had always thought of New Mexico as one big dry desert; I had watched a lot of westerns. But I reassured my wife that I had driven in such conditions many times before. She did not give me a vote of confidence. While what I told her was true, about growing up driving on such roads, I did not tell her that the vehicles I had driven were bigger and more powerful. But I did say that no matter what, we must not stop, because if we did we might never get started again. I noted that we had almost a full tank of gas, and that was one thing in our favor. She was not impressed with our good fortune.
Soon I found myself gripping the steering wheel so tight my knuckles were white. I could only see my travelmate with my peripheral vision; my eyes were fixed on the road ahead. The little car swerved and slid over the road as traction was difficult to find. Under my breath I was saying some very unkind things about the little under powered sedan, but we continued forward. Occasionally there would be a crunching sound as the oil pan of the engine would drag on the road and the little 2 liter engine would over-rev, before the tires would finally get traction again. I wished for mud grip tires. We’d had them on our trucks when I was younger.
We were on a heavily rutted road, but we had to avoid the deep ruts, because our car would drag and possibly get stuck if we tried to use them. At one place a stream had overflowed the roadway, and we had no choice but to go through the wash out. I remembered how a Volkswagen I once owned would float and hoped the Dodge would do the same, but our momentum carried us across the stream. However, there was no sigh of relief, because we still had miles to go, and we knew not how many.
I was beginning to appreciate the front wheel drive configuration of the car. I believed that if I could keep the front wheels pointed in the right direction and continue moving we would get through. Frequently the rear of the car would be in one of the ditches of the single lane road but we continued on without stopping.
Finally, after what seemed like hours of driving in silence with only an occasional gasp from my passenger, we saw a barricade ahead. After we passed through an opening in the barricade we could see an asphalt highway ahead. We stopped for a breather and a bottle of water from the cooler. Behind us the sign on the barricade stated, “Road Closed to Through Traffic”. It had been a learning experience. We found out that I could drive a front wheel drive compact on muddy roads. We also learned to understand what the legends on a road map really meant. We had been on an “unimproved road”, and that was an understatement!
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